Tom Reilly (author)

Tom Reilly (born 1960) is an Irish author and newspaper columnist (Life of Reilly, Drogheda Independent), who has written books on Oliver Cromwell and religion, as well as a book based on his own newspaper columns among others. To date in total, he has published eight books, two of which have been conventionally published, the other six have been self-published.

A native of Drogheda, County Louth, Reilly is a director of a local printing company called Burex Manufacturing Ltd. of Dunleer, Louth, and a founder director of the Myteam.ie brand, which launched in late 2008. He spent most of his working life in the printing and allied trades and is an avid local historian.

Reilly's best-known work on Cromwell is the highly contentious tome, Cromwell – An Honourable Enemy: The Untold Story of the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland (1999), which holds that Cromwell did not intentionally target civilians during the campaign.

Cromwell – An Honourable Enemy: The Untold Story of the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland

Negative reviews

• Eugene Coyle's review of Cromwell – An Honourable Enemy concludes: "There is a need for a new book on the Irish Cromwellian campaign but unfortunately but this is not it."

• Historian John Morrill's Rewriting Cromwell: A Case of Deafening Silences opined that the work constituted a "major attempt at rehabilitation was attempted by Tom Reilly ... but this has been largely rejected by other scholars."

Positive reviews

• The Sunday Times review of the book called it "... an important book ... scrupulous in [his] examination of evidence ... assiduous in research and [he] quotes primary sources extensively. Above all, he understands that the past should not be judged by the standards and fashions of the 1990s."

• A study by historian Philip Graham McKeiver, A New History of Cromwell's Irish Campaign, supports Reilly's thesis, garnering the following review:

  This spirited new account of Oliver Cromwell's Irish Campaign of 1649-50 is based upon close reading of printed primary sources, especially Thomas Carlyle's edition of Cromwell's letters and speeches, and a wide range of secondary works... in each case beginning by setting out a number of myths, misunderstandings, and misconceptions and then seeking to correct and demythologise those points... Some of these myths and false ideas are quite easily and quickly disposed of... the author's vigorous reinvestigation ruefully but surely correctly notes that it suited both nations to magnify the actions of Cromwell in Ireland, in ways that prostituted history to political and religious propaganda.^[1]

Bibliography

• Cromwell at Drogheda. Broin Print Ltd. (1993); ISBN 0-95222-910-2. 
• Cromwell – An Honourable Enemy:The Untold Story of the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland. Brandon Books (1999) and Phoenix Press (2001)and Brandon Books (2008); ISBN 0-86322-250-1. 
• Hollow Be Thy Name. Trafford Publishing, (2006), ISBN 1-55395-066-6; ISBN 978-1553950660. 
• Life of Reilly. Trafford Publishing, (2006); ISBN 1-41208-867-4; ISBN 978-1412088671. 
• Joe Stanley – Printer to the Rising, Brandon Books (2005); ISBN 9780863223464
• Tracing Drogheda's Medieval Walls, North East Printers (1995)
• The Story of Drogheda, North East Printers (1998)
• Drogheda United – The Story So Far, Anglo Printers (2007)

References

1. ^ A New History of Cromwell's Irish Campaign at Amazon.com