Tom Reilly is an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 author and newspaper columnist (Life of Reilly, Drogheda Independent), who has written books on Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 and religion, as well as a book based on his own newspaper columns among others. To date in total, he has published eight books, two of which have been conventionally published, the other six have been self-published.

A native of Drogheda

Drogheda

Drogheda is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, 56 km north of Dublin. It is the last bridging point on the River Boyne before it enters the Irish Sea....

, County Louth

County Louth

County Louth is a county of Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Louth. Louth County Council is the local authority for the county...

, Reilly is a director of a local printing company called Burex Manufacturing Ltd. of Dunleer

Dunleer

Dunleer is a town and townland in County Louth, Ireland.Dunleer town is situated midway between Dundalk and Drogheda. It is the principal Town Borough in the Barony of Ferrard. It has a Charter dating back to 1252...

, Louth, and a founder director of the Myteam.ie brand, which launched in late 2008. He spent most of his working life in the printing and allied trades and is an avid local historian.

Reilly's best-known work on Cromwell is the highly contentious tome,
Cromwell – An Honourable Enemy: The Untold Story of the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland (1999), which holds that Cromwell did not intentionally target civilians during the campaign.

Negative reviews

• Eugene Coyle's review of Cromwell – An Honourable Enemy concludes: "There is a need for a new book on the Irish Cromwellian campaign but unfortunately but this is not it."

• Historian John Morrill
  John Morrill (historian)
  John Morrill FBA is a British historian. He specialises in the political, religious, social and cultural histories of early-modern Britain....
  
  's Rewriting Cromwell: A Case of Deafening Silences opined that the work constituted a "major attempt at rehabilitation was attempted by Tom Reilly ... but this has been largely rejected by other scholars."

Positive reviews

• The Sunday Times
  The Sunday Times
  The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
  
  review of the book called it "... an important book ... scrupulous in [his] examination of evidence ... assiduous in research and [he] quotes primary sources extensively. Above all, he understands that the past should not be judged by the standards and fashions of the 1990s."

• A study by historian Philip Graham McKeiver, A New History of Cromwell's Irish Campaign, supports Reilly's thesis, garnering the following review:

  This spirited new account of Oliver Cromwell's Irish Campaign of 1649-50 is based upon close reading of printed primary sources, especially Thomas Carlyle

  Thomas Carlyle

  Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...

  
  's edition of Cromwell's letters and speeches, and a wide range of secondary works... in each case beginning by setting out a number of myths, misunderstandings, and misconceptions and then seeking to correct and demythologise those points... Some of these myths and false ideas are quite easily and quickly disposed of... the author's vigorous reinvestigation ruefully but surely correctly notes that it suited both nations to magnify the actions of Cromwell in Ireland, in ways that prostituted history to political and religious propaganda.