Beyond his skill as a jeweler, one of the first traits you notice in Nigel O’Reilly is his masterful storytelling, something he attributes to his love of words and his proud Irish heritage.
What makes his gift even more impressive is that O’Reilly has dyslexia, a learning disorder that makes reading and processing language difficult. Growing up in rural Ireland, he was tutored in his mother’s home classroom, ensuring he got to secondary school. There, he discovered his expertise at working with his hands. He went on to an apprenticeship creating injection molds for vascular surgery implements.
Add in a romantic meeting at a nightclub called Cuba that put him on a path to a much-sought-after jewelry internship, which led to a series of jobs working for jewelry’s best not only in Ireland but worldwide—and that, dear readers, is how O’Reilly evolved from a sickly kid struggling to read to a master goldsmith respected for his jewelry’s technical brilliance and his immense creativity.
Told you he was a storyteller.
“They’re surprised I survived at all,” O’Reilly says of his parents, who welcomed him into the family during a major snowstorm in December 1981.
Unlike many jewelry origin stories, O’Reilly says his mother wore no jewelry at all. “She had no engagement ring, no wedding band. Ireland at that time wasn’t known for making jewelry at all—it was only known for art, music, and alcohol. That’s gone, thankfully.”
His mom, a special-education teacher, caught his dyslexia around age 7 and helped him get through what could have been traumatic years of schooling, O’Reilly says. In secondary school, he concentrated on subjects using his hands, such as drawing and woodworking, and his true talent emerged. He loved English, O’Reilly says, but he just couldn’t write down what he wanted to say.
O’Reilly decided to skip college and took a position at the surgical-mold company. At age 18, O’Reilly had to report at 6:30 every morning, for a job with tough coworkers and even tougher work. “Looking back, it was just me trying to be creative in some way,” he says.
On a night out with friends, O’Reilly met his future wife, Tracy, at that Cuba nightclub. While they were dating, he would hang out with Tracy and her friends and at her nearby art school. To impress her, O’Reilly began making rings, out of the same metal his company used for vascular-surgery items. It didn’t rust, and it had a good surface for his intricate ideas.
“I started showing her the rings, and she said they were really cool. She asked, ‘Have you ever thought about doing jewelry?’ I had absolutely no idea what to do,” O’Reilly says. “She checked online and found a course through the Crafts Council of Ireland that happens every two years. They only take 12 people on, and you could only get in with a portfolio, an interview, and a bench test.”
He spent a year getting his portfolio together, setting up a primitive bench at home. “I had no clue what I was doing, to be honest. I was messing around, using a lot of equipment at work,” O’Reilly says. “I got in [the program], and I was absolutely delighted. Jewelry just made sense. It all made sense to me.… I could look at a drawing, explode it, see different parts, and put it back together. I became obsessed with becoming the best at it.”
O’Reilly would train with two master goldsmiths: Rudolf Heltzel and Erwin Springbrunn. With Heltzel, “I kept turning up at his shop, asking for work,” O’Reilly says. “It was easier for him to let me work there than to keep sending me away.”
Springbrunn, who also was one of the finest gem cutters in Europe, became O’Reilly’s mentor and friend. O’Reilly can only gush about the man and their relationship. “In our course, they said we were going to meet him, and all 12 of us got into a bus to meet this gem cutter in Roscommon. Not London! It was only 40 minutes away from where I grew up,” O’Reilly recalls of meeting Springbrunn.
“We turned up at a small house, and he walked out of the door with this big white beard and half-moon glasses. He looked just like Richard Harris as Harry Potter’s Dumbledore. He got onto the bus and said, ‘Welcome, colleagues.’ At that point, I knew it was an important trade and worth giving respect.”
O’Reilly’s experience alongside those two masters, as well as working at the injection-mold company, is what influences him the most today, he says: superb skill with jewelry combined with affinity for technology. O’Reilly went on to work for several high jewelry houses, including Van Cleef & Arpels, Stephen Webster, Boodles, Garrard, and Fabergé, before setting up his own studio and shop in Castlebar, County Mayo, prior to the pandemic.
“In the last few years, I’ve become obsessed with Bowie, his evolution and constant change. I’m trying to do that with my own work—pushing it and pushing the boundaries,” O’Reilly says. “I have so many things I’m trying to get out there.”
And while he’s still trying to impress his wife with his work, he also wants to tell the stories of his inspirations, whether it is David Bowie, characters like Disney’s Cruella De Vil, late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, or even a great whiskey.
In November 2023, O’Reilly debuted his Aberfeldy collection in partnership with the 125-year-old Scottish whiskey brand. The capsule comprises seven jewels and accessories—five from O’Reilly’s existing work and two, Pitilie Burn cufflinks and the Highland Honeycomb ring, made specifically with Aberfeldy and the Scottish Highlands (where it is distilled) in mind. Anyone who purchases the Pitilie cufflinks or Highland Honeycomb ring also receives a bottle of 25-year-old Aberfeldy single malt scotch.
O’Reilly’s Aberfeldy pieces feature high-quality stones and 18k gold, with details harkening back to the whiskey: Custom Madeira citrine represents the liquid itself; ice blue diamonds evoke its pure, crystalline water source; and purplish stones pay tribute to the heather that grows throughout the Highlands.
These pieces reflect O’Reilly’s many gifts, including the way he shares his story. “I want them to work on both levels—they have to be beautiful to look at as well beautiful to wear. But there also has to be a deeper meaning to the piece,” he says.
Top: Nigel O’Reilly is an Irish master goldsmith who says he seeks to challenge himself with every jewelry masterpiece he creates. (Photos courtesy of Nigel O’Reilly)
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