Irish Scholarship & Activities

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“All four of my grandparents were Irish immigrants to America. They were never able to return to Ireland. I feel as though I’ve done that for them in my work on Irish culture.”
— Kevin Reilly

Scholarly Innovation

In A History of Irish Autobiography, edited by Liam Harte (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Reilly is credited with being “first into the field” of the critical examination of Irish literary autobiography. His work is cited four times in Irish Autobiography: Stories of Self in the Narrative of a Nation by Claire Lynch (Peter Lang, 2009), and in other publications.

Selected Publications

  • Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2026).

  • “Get a Job and Get a Life—with James Joyce: Why Reading the ‘Jocoserious’ Joyce Is Useful Fun,” Liberal Education, 106, No. 1/2 (2020), pp. 58-61.

  • Biographical Essay on Pat O’Brien, Irish-American Actor, in The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, 1, 1981-85, ed. K.T. Jackson (New York: Scribner’s, 1998), pp. 607-608.

  • “Northern Irish Ironies: School Reform, the European Economic Community, and Mrs. Thatcher,” Eire-Ireland, 26, No. 3, (1991), pp. 121-127.

  • “The Greatest Talkers Since the Greeks,” Back Page Essay on the Irish and the English Language, Notre Dame Magazine, 14, No. 2 (1985), p. 72.

  • “Irish Literary Autobiography: The Goddesses That Poets Dream Of,” Eire-Ireland, 16, No. 3 (1981), pp. 57-80.

  • “Re-membering: Irish Poetry after Yeats,” Eire-Ireland, 15, No. 3, (1980), pp. 120-126.

  • “Ethic and Ritual in Joyce’s Ulysses,” Essays in Literature (University of Denver), 2, No. 3 (1974), pp. 59-74.

Teaching

  • Co-taught the James Joyce course with Professor Emeritus Phillip Herring at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2010.

  • Lectures on Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and Lady Augusta Gregory in the Irish American Cultural Institute’s Irish Perceptions series.

  • Radio Programs on Joyce, Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory, and Seamus Heaney on Wisconsin Public Radio’s University of the Air.

Related Activities

  • Board of Directors, Irish American Cultural Institute, 2022-present.

  • Steering Committee, University of Wisconsin-Madison Celtic Studies Program, 2008-13.

  • Named One of the Top 100 Irish-American Educators by Irish Voice weekly, 2009.

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