Edward O'Reilly was born in County Cavan and moved to Dublin at the age of twenty. He compiled a dictionary of Irish, with the help of William Haliday, which was printed in Dublin in 1817 as Irish - English Dictionary, prefixed by an introduction to Irish grammar. The Iberno-Celtic Society, whose aim it was to preserve Irish literature, appointed him its assistant secretary. In 1820 it published his Dictionary of Irish Writers. The Royal Irish Academy awarded him two medals, one for his essay on the brehon laws, and the other for his discussion of the authenticity of the poems of Ossian. He catalogued Irish language manuscripts in Dublin libraries and provided Irish nomenclature for the maps of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland.

Born:	1770
Died:	August 1829