Samuel F. O'Reilly

O’Reilly’s Tattoo Machine:
Fine Art for the Masses

By Ray Cavanaugh, Contributor
April / May 2016

March 25, 2016 by </a> By Ray Cavanaugh, Contributor<br/><a href=“https://irishamerica.com/archives/2016-archive/april-may-2016/“>April / May 2016</a> Leave a Comment

More than 45 million Americans have at least one tattoo. The vast lot of them got inked by way of an electric tattoo machine. And chances are they have no idea who invented the electric tattoo machine: Samuel O’Reilly. His rambunctious, enigmatic life began in May 1854 in Waterbury, Connecticut. Both his parents were Irish immigrants, and he was the oldest of five children. At … [Read more...] about O’Reilly’s Tattoo Machine:
Fine Art for the Masses

September 18, 1964

On this day in 1964, Irish playwright Sean O’Casey died from a heart attack at the age of 84 in London. Born in Dublin on March 30, O’Casey first developed an interest in playwriting when he and his brother would put on Shakespeare plays for their family. He joined the Gaelic League in 1906 and became very involved with nationalism politics, leading him to Gaelicize his birth name of John Casey to Sean O’Casey. His first accepted play was “The Shadow of A Gunman,” which performed at the Abbey Theater in 1923. Two plays, “Juno and the Paycock” and “The Plough and the Stars,” would follow to make up O’Casey’s “Dublin trilogy.” He met his wife, Eileen Carey while in London and lived there until his death.

O’Reilly’s Tattoo Machine:
Fine Art for the Masses

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Samuel F. O'Reilly

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