Reilly Cellar Winery
About The Family
Many Irish immigrated to the United Stated to work, to prosper, and to build families. Joe Reilly’s, and the Reilly’s family story mirrors that of many Irish-Americans.
Historically speaking, all the Reilly’s originate from the O’Reilly Clan from the town of Cavan, in central Ireland. Cavan was formerly part of Ulster County and is today Cavan County. In medieval times, the O’Reilly family ruled the province under the leadership of Brefny O’Reilly; who was challenged both by local rivals like the O’Rourke’s and foreign powers like the Vikings and Normans. The O’Reilly Clan would come to prominence again during the Cromwell period, when one Phillip O’Reilly famously stood his ground at the island Castle of Cloughouther preventing, for a time, the designs of Oliver Cromwell’s armies in Ireland.
Joe Reilly’s great grand father immigrated from Cavan to the United Stated and landed in New York City sometime in the 1890s. The word around the family dinner table is that this Great Grand Father’s son, also named Joe, worked in industrial Manhattan and was a boxing referee at Madison Square Garden in the 1920s. Joe’s Father, also a Joe, worked in NYC’s Hotel district and would meet and marry Catherine Hayes. In the 1940s, the couple moved out of NYC and landed in Islip Terrace to raise a family and thus in the 1950s: Joe, his two brothers and sister, would come to know Islip Terrace and its fine Concord Grapes.
Like the Reilly’s, the Hayes, also originate from Ireland but further south, in County Kilkenny and County Tipperary. Catherine Hayes, and many of her cousins, immigrated to the United Stated from the late 1920s up through to the 1950s. Catherine Hayes landed in Manhattan in the late 1920s and worked as a nurse caring for children of some of the wealthy families of Manhattan. It was here, in Manhattan, that Catherine would meet and marry Joseph Reilly, and next move to Islip Terrace to raise a family. In the present day, in Ireland, the Hayes family still own and operate a farm, butcher shop, and the esteemed local pub, Hayes’ Pub, in Urlingford; which is ideally located on the main road midway between Cork and Dublin.