Over the summer months I am intending to contact O'Kelly through a Ouija board used at midnight beneath a tree in the Warandepark.

I warn, however, that the information on this page is quite scant. And I still have no idea how he ended up with the "O'Kelly" in his name.

<This interesting surname, with variant spellings Kelley and Kellie, has three distinct possible origins. Firstly, it is an Anglicized form of the great Old Gaelic name "O'Ceallaigh". The Gaelic prefix "O" indicates "male descendant of", plus the personal byname "Ceallach" meaning "strife" or "contention". The main (O')Kelly clan belonged to Ui Maine (mid Galway and South Roscommon), and the reigning chieftain, O'Ceallaigh (circa 1351), was a renowned patron of the arts. O'Kelly of Gallagh, whose claim to the designation chief of the name is officially recognised is entitled to be called the O'Kelly.>

http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/O'...

Two points about the above:

•As I understand it, the prefix "O'" specifically means "grandson of," while "Mac" or "Mc" means "son of."

•Fascinating that the geographic origin was partly in <Galway>. This may suggest that our protagonist's family at one time resided there before returning to the Continent.

Excellent dutch page with a full survey of his chess career & results:

<MRS O'KELLY:> Well, we are both big fans of The Ring by Wagner...

<MR O'KELLY Sr:> You mean Siegfried? Or Gunther?

"He was descendent [sic] of Charlemagne."

Three players were new Grandmasters that same year in 1956, cp. a note in: Hastings (1955/56)

Alberic O'Kelly de Galway was obviously the first Belgium Grandmaster, and <he became the first Grandmaster of over-the-board and correspondence chess in 1962> as winner of the 3rd World Correspondence Championship (1959-1962).

An International arbiter of note, O'Kelly was chief arbiter in the two world championship matches between Petrosian and Spassky (1966 and 1969) plus the de-facto wc match between Karpov and Korchnoi (1974).

A talented speaker and polyglot gentleman, Alberic O’Kelly de Galway spoke perfectly eight languages.

Winner at Brussels Quadrangular 1937, <Beverwijk (Hoogovens) 1946> (ahead of Stolz), he won the first ever Zonal tournament, played at Hilversum 1947 (ahead of joint Pachman and Trifunovic), Teplice-Sanov 1947, Rio de Janeiro 1948, <Sao Paulo International 1948> (ahead of Eliskases, Rossetto, Engels, Sanguineti, Medina, 14 players), Saarbrücken 1950, <Dortmund 1951> (Prequel, 2nd-3rd Fuderer, Milic, on 7th place Bogoljubov), Dublin 1954, Southdean 1954, Cork 1955, Dublin 1956, <Ostende (6th) 1956> (ahead of Donner, Golombek, Lehmann, Bernstein, etc.), multiple winner at Open Festival of Bognor Regis, in West Sussex on the south coast of England: (4th) 1956, (8th) 1960 (with Darga), (9th) 1961 & (13th) 1965, Ghent 1956, Tarragona 1957 (ahead of Rossolimo), Paris (Christmas) 1959, <Zürich (Nimzowitsch Memorial) 1960> (ahead of Dieter Keller, Fuderer, Gereben, Dückstein, Van den Berg, Paoli, Kieninger, etc.), Eastbourne 1960, Terrassa 1960, <Utrecht (PAM tournament) 1961> (ahead of Robatsch, Matanovic, Bisguier, Langeweg, Donner, etc.), Paris (Christmas) 1961, 1962 & 1963 (shared with Darga), thrice winner at the Costa del Sol series, played in Torremolinos or Malaga: namely Costa del Sol (III.) 1963, Costa del Sol (VI.) 1966 (shared) & Costa del Sol (VII.) 1967, the inaugural edition of the classic <Palma de Mallorca in 1965> (shared with Pomar Salamanca and Darga), twice winner at Olot, Spain 1967 & 1969 (ahead of joint runners-up Marovic, Ivkov, followed by Pomar Salamanca). In addition, O’Kelly finished three times in a row as clear second at Beverwijk from 1951 to 1953.

As mentioned above, O’Kelly played eight Olympiads from 1950 till 1968 and was 13 times the Belgian Champion. A big success came when O’Kelly de Galway won the title of ICCF (3rd) Correspondence Chess World Champion in 1962.