In addition to my great-great grandmother and some of her O'Reilly nephews, I've found evidence that another member of the same family also left Ireland to come to America. This was my great-great grand uncle, James Thomas O'Reilly.
James Thomas O'Reilly was born 17 May 1854 and baptized the 24th of the same month at Bekan, Mayo. The sponsors to his baptism were Francis Treston and Anne O'Reilly, presumably relatives of his parents, Laurence O'Reilly and Bridget Treston. He was likely named for his maternal grandfather, James Treston of Cottage, Mayo, in accordance with the popular naming conventions of the time.
James appeared again in the records at the age of 19, when he married Margaret Rothery 2 November 1873 in Dundrum. James's address is given as Bride Street, which is right in the Dublin city centre, though unfortunately no occupation is given. Margaret's address is given as Dundrum, as are the addresses of both parents. James's are given as Laurence and Bridget O'Reilly and Margaret's are Isaac and Sarah Rothery. From the 1884 marriage record of Margaret's brother, Isaac, in Rathmines, we learn that their mother's name was Sarah Doyle. The Thom's Directories list Isaac Rothery, their father, resident in the Churchtown area for many years as a cattle dealer. This was also around the time Laurence O'Reilly and his family had moved from Mayo to Dublin following the death of James O'Reilly there in 1872, and the Rotherys lived very close by and certainly would have known them. As the marriage record doesn't state James's mother's maiden name, we can only look to the evidence in additional documents, but I have since concluded that this was the same James from the Bekan parish baptism register.
The church records show three children born while James and Margaret lived in Dublin: Laurence, born 19 August 1874 in Churchtown; Isaac, born 10 Jan 1876 in Churchtown; and James, born 18 January 1877 in Roundtown. At this point their trail went cold in Ireland. I was able to find an obituary for Margaret's mother printed in Freeman's Journal in January 1884, with the request that American papers please copy (commonly requested when relatives have moved abroad).
Based on the request in Sarah Doyle Rothery's obituary, a check of American records under their names turned up Margaret's death certificate in 1920, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. We had the right Margaret... but what about James? As mentioned above, the marriage didn't conclusively state he was the son of Laurence O'Reilly and Bridget Treston. I also didn't turn up a death certificate in Pennsylvania for him, and since he also doesn't appear with the family on the 1910 census he likely died sometime between 1900 and 1906, when the state officially started issuing death certificates.
However, two documents among the Pennsylvania records provide links back to the Bekan baptism. The first is the 1900 census. Included in the census data for that year are the month and birth year of the respondent. James, listed here as James O'Riley, gives his birth date as May 1854, exactly matching the Bekan record. The second is the Philadelphia death certificate of James and Margaret's son, James, the one whose baptism was recorded in St. Joseph's Dublin, in 1877. The younger James died in 1908 of cancer at the age of 31. His parents are recorded as James T. O'Reilly (T as in Thomas) and Maggie Rothery (name transcribed incorrectly; see image).
So, to conclude: we know from the Pennsylvania records that the James O'Reilly who married Margaret Rothery in Dublin was named James T. O'Reilly and that he was born in May 1854. The Dublin marriage tells us that James's parents were named Laurence and Bridget, and the Mayo baptism of Laurence O'Reilly and Bridget Treston's son shows that he was born in May 1854 and his middle name was Thomas. Taken together, I think it is a reasonable conclusion to draw that the Pennsylvania, Dublin, and Mayo records are all referring to the same person: James Thomas O'Reilly.
(Additional fee-based church records I am unable to provide links to were found on RootsIreland. Freeman's Journal can be accessed for a fee from either Find My Past or the British Newspaper Archive. Thom's Directory is also available via Find My Past.)
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