Jennifer O'Reilly

Jennifer O'Reilly FRSA MRIA (1943–2016) was a medieval historian of Britain and Ireland known for her work on text and image, the writings of Bede, and medieval iconography. She was married to the Irish scholar Terence O'Reilly.

Career Jennifer O’Reilly received her B.A. Honours degree in history in 1964 from the University of Nottingham, followed by a Dip.Ed. (Distinction) from the Department of Education at the University of Oxford in 1965. She returned to Nottingham for her Ph.D in Art History, which was awarded in 1972.

Her monograph, Studies in the Iconography of the Virtues and Vices in the Middle Ages was published in 1988. A book of essays in her honour was published in 2011, 'Listen, o isles, unto me: studies in medieval word and image in honour of Jennifer O'Reilly'. In retirement she continued to publish extensively and gave the Jarrow Lecture and the Brixworth Lecture in 2014.

Three volumes of her collected essays were published by Routledge in 2019, edited by Diarmuid Scully, Máirín MacCarron, Carol Farr and Elizabeth Mullins, including both previous publications and formerly unpublished work. The first volume includes her work on Bede, Adomnán and Thomas Becket, and the second and third cover the Insular Gospel Books, the Codex Amiatinus, the Book of Kells and Anglo-Saxon Art.

Honours

Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries (2005) Member of the Royal Irish Academy (2007) The Jarrow Lecture (2014) The Brixworth Lecture (2014) Festschrift (2011) Listen, O Isles, Unto Me: studies in medieval word and image in Honour of Jennifer O'Reilly, edited by Elizabeth Mullins and Diarmuid Scully (Cork University Press) Early Medieval Text and Image: The Insular Gospel Books, eds. Carol Farr and Elizabeth Mullins (Routledge, 2019) Early Medieval Text and Image: The Codex Amiatinus, the Book of Kells and Anglo-Saxon Art, eds. Carol Farr and Elizabeth Mullins (Routledge 2019) ‘St Paul and the sign of Jonah. Theology and Scripture in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica’, (Jarrow Lecture, 2014) Studies in the iconography of the Virtues and Vices in the Middle Ages (New York and London, 1988)

Dr Alan Thacker (Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study), 'Bede and Cassiodorus', 2017 Professor Jane Hawkes (University of York), ‘Venerating the Cross around the year 800 in Anglo-Saxon England’, 2018 Professor Máire Herbert (University College Cork), ‘At the Ends of the Earth: Conversion and its consequences in some Insular Sources’, 2019