Patrick O'Reilly (ethnologist)

Patrick O'Reilly (May 19, 1900 in Saint-Mihiel – August 6, 1988 in Paris 14th) was a French priest, Marist religious and ethnologist, responsible for the organization of the Gauguin Museum in Tahiti. He is the author of hundreds of works on the Pacific, which still constitute one of the main sources of information for oceanists today.

Biography
Son of André Farell O'Reilly, battalion commander, and Jeanne Gautier, the young boy studied in religious establishments in Le Havre and Saintes.

He continued his higher studies at the Sorbonne then at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He graduated from the Institute of Ethnology in Paris.

In 1922, he entered the congregation of Marist Fathers. He was ordained priest in 1928. He was chaplain of the Reunion of Catholic Students from 1930 to 1975. In these positions, he met a certain number of students called to a promising future, notably François Mitterrand of whom he remained a confidant until the end of his days. He took courses at the École du Louvre.

Several ethnological missions will allow him to deploy his talents as an ethnologist specializing in Oceania: from 1936 to 1937, he is responsible for an important CNRS mission (it will be followed by two others, in 1949 and 1953, which will be individual initiatives). It was during one of these missions that he met Hermano Somuk on the island of Bougainville. He encourages him to express himself through drawing. Back in Paris, O Reilly organized an exhibition of these drawings which met with some success. Jean Dubuffet acquired some of these works. Somuk died in 1965 and was forgotten until the Musée du Quai Branly dedicated an exhibition to him in 2020.

Designated as secretary general of the Society of Oceanists with the agreement of Maurice Leenhardt in the fall of 1944, he held this position until 1973.

In 1964, he was responsible for the organization of the Gauguin Museum in Tahiti, which he took the initiative of, supported by the Singer-Polignac Foundation, then in 1973, for the organization of the historical section of the Museum of Tahiti and the Islands. He then became passionate about the work of Vaiere Mara, a Tahitian sculptor born in Rurutu in 1936, and devoted his Sunday research to him, which led to the publication of Legendary Woods of Mara, Tahitian sculptor, in 1979.

Ill and retired, Patrick O'Reilly died on August 6, 1988 in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.

The correspondence of Odette Teissier du Cros, her friend and confidante, is today deposited in the archives of the Académie des Hauts Cantons.

Decoration

 * Knight of the Legion of Honour

Distinctions

 * Member of the Society of Oceanists (1945)
 * Member of the Overseas Academy of Sciences (1956)