Daniel O’Connell – The Liberator
I love the way Daniel O’Connell peeks out over the rooftops of Ennis. You can glimpse Dan on his monument from so many corners of the town as you walk along its medieval streets. The twenty-two-metre-high limestone memorial featuring a doric column and surmounted by a cloak-clad O’Connell was funded by public subscription and unveiled on 3 October 1865. The ongoing restoration of the street and square named in O’Connell’s honour is wonderful to see.
This week we commemorate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of The Liberator. O’Connell was born on 6 August 1775 in Kerry. His links with Clare centre on his election as member of the Westminster parliament for the county in 1828. His monument in Ennis stands next to the location of the old courthouse where the votes were cast. It is apt that Clare County Council is hosting a cultural commemoration of his birth to be staged at Glór at 8pm on Saturday, 9 August.
We are commemorating O’Connell’s birth, but my own contact with his life story relates principally to his death. The Irish College in Rome contains a large carrara marble monument designed to entomb his heart. When I lived in the College, I frequently showed the monument to visitors. Many Irish couples who celebrated their weddings in the College, sensing romance in a monument built for a heart, chose the memorial as the backdrop for their photographs.
O’Connell’s body is buried in Glasnevin, Dublin. So why is his heart not there also? Some find the dismembering of a corpse to be odd. However, O’Connell was not unique in this regard. The poet Shelley’s heart was interred in England while his cremated body was buried in Italy. The story of O’Connell’s heart is recounted in correspondence between Fr John Miley who was his de facto chaplain and the rector of the Irish College in Rome, Fr Paul Cullen. O’Connell’s final journey was a pilgrimage to Rome in 1847. He was an elderly man by the standards of the time, in poor health and had only recently been released from prison. The famine was at its most severe in 1847 and his final speech in the House of Commons was an appeal for help for its victims. Due to his physical weakness this final speech was barely audible.
O’Connell never reached Rome. He died in Hotel Feder on Piazza Bianchi in Genoa on 15 May 1847, the seventeenth anniversary of he first presenting himself at the House of Commons as the member for Clare. Fr Miley’s letter to Cullen the next morning began with the words ’O’Connell is dead!’. Miley added that O’Connell wished to bequeath his soul to God, his body to Ireland and his heart to Rome. It was hoped that his heart might be interred in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. However, Pope Pius IX feared offending the British government on whose goodwill Catholic missionaries depended in many parts of the world.
A requiem Mass was offered for O’Connell in the Roman baroque basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle. The attendance included the future Cardinal, now a canonised saint, John Henry Newman and Thomas Croke, the future Archbishop of Cashel after whom our national stadium is named. The homily was delivered by the noted Italian preacher Gioacchino Ventura on the theme of religion and liberty. Pope Pius received O’Connell’s son, Daniel and other members of the party in private audience.
The crypt of the Basilica of Sant’Agata dei Goti, where the Irish College was then located became the resting place for O’Connell’s heart. In 1851 Charles Bianconi, an Hiberno-Italian businessman whose family had links with Kildysart, came to pray where his friend’s heart lay. Being somewhat taken aback that there was no memorial marking the spot, Bianconi commissioned Giovanni Maria Benzoni to create a suitable monument. This memorial depicts O’Connell as MP for Clare seeking admission to the House of Commons. The English language inscription, written by Newman, states:
He is represented at the bar of the British house of Commons
in MDCCCXXIX
when he refused to take the anti-catholic declaration
in these remarkable words
“I at once reject this declaration: part of it I believe to be
untrue and the rest I know to be false.
When the College moved to its current location during the 1920’s, the monument was also transferred. However, it is unlikely that the urn containing the heart was relocated.
Daniel O’Connell is celebrated as The Liberator reflecting his zeal for democracy, pacifism, the abolition of slavery, civil rights for Catholics, economic rights for tenant farmers and the dignity of all downtrodden people. His memory and links with Clare are a source of pride and a challenge to us in the contemporary world to fan into a flame the Christian values he advocated.
Fr. Albert McDonnell
Tradaree Pastoral Area
Clare Champion 8th of August 2025