Michael J. O'Kelly

Michael Joseph "Brian" O'Kelly (5 November 1915 – 14 October 1982) was an Irish archaeologist who led the excavation and restoration of Newgrange, a major Neolithic passage tomb in the Boyne Valley, County Meath, Ireland, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Early life O'Kelly was born in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick in 1915, the son of Elizabeth (née McAuliffe) and Joseph O'Kelly, a national school teacher. He was educated at Rockwell College in County Tipperary, before entering University College Cork in 1934. He initially studied engineering, before switching to architecture after his first year, studying surveying and architectural drawing under Henry Houghton Hill.

In the spring of 1937, while an undergraduate, he worked as a surveyor in the excavation of the ring-fort at Garranes, County Cork with Seán P. Ó Ríordáin, then Professor of Archaeology at Cork. He was inspired to take a new career path, and in the autumn of that year, he switched courses at university again, this time to archaeology, becoming one of Ó Ríordáin's students. The couple had three daughters, including the Germanist scholar Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, and lived in Blackrock, Cork.

Career In 1946 O'Kelly succeeded Professor Ó Ríordáin as head of the Archaeology Department at Cork, a position he held for 36 years. He led field work each summer, and from 1944 was published extensively in scholarly journals. O'Kelly speculated: "I think that the people who built Newgrange built not just a tomb but a house of the dead, a house in which the spirits of special people were going to live for a very long time. To ensure this, the builders took special precautions to make sure the tomb stayed completely dry, as it is to this day. …" O'Kelly and his wife also led work on other sites within the Boyne Valley complex.

Death O'Kelly died suddenly at the Bon Secours Hospital, Cork on 14 October 1982, aged 66. He was buried in St. Michael's Cemetery, Cork.

Selected bibliography Irish Antiquity (1981) Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend (1982) Early Ireland: An Introduction to Irish Prehistory (1989, posthumous)