Gary Cooke visits Peter O Reilly in his Dublin home to look back on his International Cricketing Career and his time in the professional game.
Peter was educated in the city at Belvedere College and at aged 18, he made his debut in first-class cricket for Ireland against Scotland at Edinburgh in 1982.
Peter spent 1983 and 1984 in England playing for Warwickshire Second XI, but was unable to force his way into the first eleven. He made a second first-class appearance for Ireland in 1984 against Scotland at Glasgow.
A fast bowler, O’Reilly took 5 wickets across his two first-class matches, at an average of 16.20, with best figures of 3/43.
After two seasons in England, Peter returned to Ireland to study art and history at University College Dublin. After graduating, he taught history at St. Andrew’s College, Dublin.
Peter briefly returned to the Irish side in 1990, playing minor matches against the touring New Zealanders, as well as touring Zimbabwe.
Following the death of The Irish Times cricket correspondent Sean Pender, Peter left his teaching job to fill the vacant cricket correspondent job at the newspaper.
Peter became their rugby correspondent in 1995, a position he also held at various times with the Sunday Tribune and the Irish Independent. He is the current Irish rugby correspondent for The Sunday Times. Peter has written books on Irish rugby, including the acclaimed Ireland and the Triple Crown, The Full Bag of Chips, released in 2004. His daughter, Lucy O’Reilly, was selected to play for the Irish women’s cricket team in her early teens.
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