Conor O'Brien:Conor O'Brien, who died aged 74 in the final hours of 2007, was an authority on old Irish silver and also on the history of south Co Wicklow where he lived.
A lifelong researcher into and collector of old silver, skilled to test the authenticity of makers' marks at sight, Conor wrote widely on the subject. His writings deal extensively with the silver adornments of table and church from the 17th and 18th centuries, with much of his research devoted to the Irish makers of such luxuries as wine labels, freedom boxes and dish rings.
He was the principal contributor to, and co-editor (with John Bowen) of, Cork Silver and Gold: Four Centuries of Craftsmanship (Collins Press, 2005). He co-wrote (with Ida Delamer) 500 Years of Irish Silver (National Museum of Ireland, 2005). His latest book (co-edited with John Bowen) was A Celebration of Limerick's Silver (Collins Press and the Hunt Museum, 2007).
Among Conor's contributions are the "Civic, Ceremonial and Commemorative" section and (with John McCormack) "A Directory of the Goldsmiths of Limerick".
Conor's most recent works, from autumn 2007, were The Plunkett Spoons - a Reappraisal, in the UK-based journal Silver Studies and The Goldsmiths of Waterford in Decies: Journal of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society (No 63) following an earlier appearance in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.
Born on March 1st, 1933, (during that year's big snow), to Cornelius and Sarah O'Brien (both national school teachers, his father principal of the local school), in Annacurra, Co Wicklow, Conor completed his secondary education at St Peter's, Wexford, and went on to UCD to major in science.
He took a PhD in chemistry in the early 1960s, later becoming a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
After a year working in England, Conor returned home in 1964 to become manager of the pharmaceutical firm, Loftus Bryan (now Avondale Chemicals), in Rathdrum, Co Wicklow. He retired in 1998. His home was a Georgian-fronted house on the banks of the Derry River in Annacurra which his mother (who died in 1965) had converted from the old schoolhouse in the late 1950s.
Conor made an auspicious local history debut with The Byrnes of Ballymanus in the compendious Wicklow History and Society (Geography Publications 1994). Four years later, he was to the fore in promoting a wider appreciation of the local Gaelic Irish chieftain, Feagh McHugh O'Byrne, in his tireless battles against the armies of Elizabeth I.
This culminated in the quatercentennial tribute, Feagh McHugh O'Byrne, The Wicklow Firebrand (Rathdrum Historical Society, 1998), which Conor edited. That same year, Conor played a leading role in organising the construction of the impressive stone monument flanked by pikes, in Aughrim, to commemorate the Rebellion of 1798. In this initiative, he was following in the footsteps of his maternal ancestor, a young woman from south Wicklow who, journeying to the bloodied fields around Vinegar Hill in quest of her slain father, met there a young man, also seeking a dead relative, who was later to become her husband. This woman's remains were interred in Annacurra Cemetery where Conor himself was recently laid to rest.
Amid the wide range of his enthusiasms, Conor did not neglect the particular district of his birth. The main contributor over many years to The Annacurra Record, a fine piece on the history of Annacurra Church testifies as eloquently to his local loyalty as to his scholarly research. Fittingly, at a ceremony in that church for the receiving of Conor's remains, on January 2nd, his parish priest, Fr James Hamill, paid warm tribute to him as a "true parishioner".
An apt description for a modest man, who ever regarded the work of research as the prime objective, tending to shun the means to seek the that fame he justly could have claimed. Much of the fruit of his researches, not least on the silversmiths of Kilkenny which were next in his line of sight, remains unseen.
Conor's wife, Nuala, died in 2004. He is survived by his sons, Nial and Aidan, and daughter-in-law, Susana.
Conor O'Brien: born March 1st, 1933; died December 31st, 2007