Daniel O’Connell (Genoa)

Author photograph (2025)

1875 was the centenary of Connell’s birth, with events to mark the occasion held in Ireland and around the world (see Kathryn Milligan, 2020, ‘Celebrating the Liberator: The Visual and Material Culture of the O’Connell Centenary, 1875’, in New Hibernia Review 24(1): 17-38). Newspapers in Ireland reported in August of that year (O’Connell’s birthday was August 6) that the Catholic Association of Genoa had started a subscription for a memorial to O’Connell to be placed on the Hotel Ferrer, Via al Ponte Reale, where O’Connell died on 15 May 1847. On Saturday 25 November 1876, the Gazzetta Piedmontese carried the following notice:

Genoa. The day before yesterday on the facade of the Hotel Trombetta, now the Hotel Feder, a stone memorial was unveiled recording that the death of Daniel O’Connell took place there. This memorial was organised by the Catholic Association of that city.

The Latin inscription is in classical Latin, with some archaic features (quum for cum) and a rare adjective collaticius used for something, in this case money, that is publicly collected. The interpuncts (middle dots) used to separate the words are another Roman feature, and note that one of the Roman numerals (I) seems to have been added later, perhaps to correct an omission.

The sculptor’s name, Federico Fabiano (1835-1914) appears below the portrait bust.

DANIELI OCONNELLO

VINDICI ILLI

IVRIVM CIVILIVM ATQVE SACRORVM

HIBERNIAE SVAE

QVI QVVM ROMAM ITER HABERET

HIS IN AEDIBVS CESSIT E VITA

IDIBVS MAIIS AN. M. D.CCC.XLVII

MONVMENTVM PECVNIA COLLATIT. FACTVM

ANNO AB ORTV EIVS C

M.DCCC.LXXV

To Daniel O’Connell, famed Liberator of civil and religious rights in his native Ireland, who, when he was making his way to Rome, died in this building on 15 May 1847. This monument was made with money collected by subscription in the centenary of his birth 1875.