Hugh Reily

Life
?1630-95 [also Reilly and O’Reilly]; b. Co. Cavan; barrister; Master in Chancery and clerk of council of Ireland under James II;accompanied James into exile, and issued Ireland’s Case Briefly Stated (1695), frequently reprinted under various titles, viz, Impartial History of Ireland (1720, 1754), and Genuine History of Ireland (1787, 1799, 1837, &c.) - celebrated for his prefatory remark that the legislators who introduced the penal laws ‘took more pains to make the land turn protestant than the people’, it remained for 100 years the only printed defence of Irish Catholics, including the enslavement of many in the West Indies by Cromwell ‘to the number of 15 or 20 thousand souls’; Reily accompanied James II in exile; he was appointed Chancellor of Ireland while at St. Germain, though other accounts report that the Case offended James II and caused his dismissal from service. DIW ODNB

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Works
Hugh Reily, Ireland’s cause briefly stated ([Paris or Louvain] printed in the year 1695), 12o [Wing R767; Dix 272]; reiss. as The impartial history of Ireland (1754, 1787), and as The genuine history of Ireland.

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Commentary

Thomas Mooney, A History of Ireland (Boston: Donahoe 1853) - writes in a chapter-length round-up of Irish historians: ‘Hugh O’Reilly [sic], an Irish gentleman, and native of the county Cavan, was master in the court of chancery, and register to the council under James the Second. Having followed the fortunes of that prince into France, he was nominated his chancellor for the kingdom of Ireland. In 1693, O’Reilly published a small volume in English, which has for its title, Ireland’s Case briefly stated, that is to say, an abridgment of the state of Ireland, since the reformation, wherein the things which happened in that country are represented without disguise. He reproaches Charles the Second with want of gratitude to his Irish subjects for their services: he shows the injustice and bad policy of that prince, for having confirmed the murderers of the king, his father, in their possessions and wealth, as rewards for their regicide; the old proprietors were, for those objects, stripped of their fortunes, whose only crime was their faithful allegiance to their king. He speaks, in fine, like a man who, in pleading his own cause, pleads that of his country. His complaints, it appears, were well founded; whereas the king, his master, to whom he communicated the purport of his writings, before they would be printed, was pleased to say, that “they contained but too many truths.”’ (Op. cit., p.116; available online.)

Joseph Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael (Amsterdam 1986), notes that Ireland's cause [... &c.] this is a work of Catholic history challenging Protestant interpretations of 1641; see also bibl., Ann de Valera, ‘Antiquarian and historical investigations in Ireland in the eighteenth century’ (MA thesis UCD 1978).

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References
British Library holds Hugh Reily [sic], The impartial history of Ireland, containing a summary account, of all the battles, sieges, rebellions and massacres … To which is annexed … the case of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland … by the Revd. Doctor Nary [1695]; another edn. as The Genuine History of Ireland ... [ &c.]; another edn., revised and brought down from 1676 to the present time by a Gentleman of this city; another edn. [with MS. notes]; another edn., as Genuine History of Ireland … The whole revised and brought down from 1676 to the present time (London 1768) 132pp.; 12o; Do., another edn. (Dublin 1787), pp. 142; Do., another edn. [Dublin ?1799]; Do., another edn. Dublin: Richard Grace 1837); Do., another edn. (Dublin: James Duffy [?1840?]); Do., another edn. (Dublin: C. M. Warren [c.1850.]), imperfect, with titlepage of London edition of 1754, reading ‘The impartial history of Ireland’ substituted, and slightly cropped.

Muriel McCarthy & Caroline Sherwood-Smith, Hibernia Resurgens (Dublin: Marsh’s Library 1994) [Exhibition Catalogue] lists Ireland’s Case gives details of abuse of Catholics from reight of Elizabeth to that of James II, attacking the ingratitude of Charles II, with comments on contemporaries including Sir William Petty (‘an ingenious inquisitive person’], and Sir John Temple. (p.47.)

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