User:Dunboyne

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Dermot (Joseph) O'Reilly is a theoretical physicist currently (2007) teaching Astronomy at the City University of New York. He has published in the area of Quantum Field Theory, and is the editor of Michael Flannery's memoirs,[1] having worked with Flannery during the last two years of his life. He was born in The Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, Ireland on 31^st. July 1953. His mother was Rita ("Golly") Reilly, formerly Drumm, of Dunboyne County Meath, Ireland. His father was Sean Reilly of Alpha House Dunboyne County Meath, Ireland. Alpha House was a Republican House during The Troubles in 1920, and suffered many raids by The Black and Tans. For most of Sean's life, he worked as an aeroplane mechanic with Aer Lingus, being one of its very first employees. He got this job in the days when work was scarce in Ireland through Rita's brother, Jack Drumm. Jack was one of the first engineers in Aer Lingus and was instrumental in developing their aircraft maintenance capability during the forties and fifties. Jack earned a degree in engineering from London University by studying on his own. Jack was the father of Tommy Drumm. Tommy captained the All Ireland Champion Gaelic Football team, Dublin, during its heyday in the nineteen seventies and early eithties. He is currently an exective director of McInerney Holdings plc. Sean Reilly was an avid beagler, and he was a huntsman with The Goldburn Beagles,[2] Dunboyne.

Dermot's life began in Dunboyne, growing up there when it was still a rural village. He went to Dunboyne National School, then to St. Declan's Christian Brothers School in Dublin. As a young boy he spent some time with his uncle Tom, who was a blacksmith and farrier in England in Kingsclere in Hampshire. This was the stable of famed Mill Reef,. Kingsclere was made famous in the book Watership Down. Dermot distinguished himself there by accidentally blowing up the forge while trying to clean up an old unexploded shell he found on a nearby British Army firing range. He escaped along with his cousin Vincent, with no serious injuries.

During his school years he worked in Yeates' Motors and became a proficient motorcycle mechanic, but this interfered with his studies. During this time also, his father, Sean, contracted a serious illness which debilitated him over the years. He would eventually die from this illness. On graduation from high school Dermot worked in various jobs including construction, a spell in the army, (Ordnance Survey of Ireland, and Smithfield Motors. He went to London and worked for Barclays Bank, which disinterested him and he left to visit The Basque Country. On returning from there to London he worked in a book shop in Charing Cross Road under David Elliot who was a piller and a great character in th book world of London. Dermot admired David not the least for his quote "You were like Dick Whittington looking back". His father Sean died in May 1977 a few weeks after the wedding of his sister Aileen to Micheal Ryan. Michael was a school friend of Dermots.

After studying 'A' level mathematics and physics on his own he eventually was admitted to London University, graduating with a BSc. in Physics in 1981. He came to New York in 1984 being brought over by TheBearley School ,Manhattan [3], as a sabbatical replacement physics teacher. His mother died in the spring of 1985 and Dermot stayed, taking up a teaching job in The Chapin School. During these years he taught many well known young women such as Elizabeth Murdoch, Ivanka Trump, Laura DuPont, for example, over an eleven year period. He married Kate Lawrence Heller in 1993. She is a graduate of The Brearley School, and Harvard University. Her father, Peter was a trustee of Brearley, and overseer of Harvard, and a recipient of Medal The Harvard Medal. Among his many contributions to music,he was a composer and a vice president of The [[New York Philharmonic]] Orchestra. Peter Heller died in October 2006. His wife Mary is a photographer and an active member of The Sconset Trust, a conservationist group in Nantucket.

Although working as a teacher Dermot maintained an interested in physics as a 'hobby' (in the words of his admired mentor and theoretical physicist, Stefano Bellucci). Stefano invited Dermot to visit INFN Frascati and they published a paper on The Cosmological Constant Problem in 1991. They collaborated more recently in teh area of Supergravity.

Dermot edited the memoirs, Michael Flannery, on which he and Michael worked together during the last years of Michael's life. The book was published with the help of Sean O' Bradaigh, brother of Ruairi, and was launched in New York in 1992. [4].

Dermot went to graduate school at The City University of New York, to study theoretical physics in 1996. After obtaining a masters degree from City College, New York, he taught as an assistant Professor of Mathematics at Marymount Manhattan College for three years. He then obtained a doctorate in Theoretical Physics in the area of String Theory and Supergravity. He now works on aspects of theoretical physics,[5],and also the mathematics of financial derivatives.[6] He believes in using Mathematica to assist in the modeling process and he has developed routines to do this.

He now has two children a boy and a girl.