Cuore d’Irlanda: nazione cattolica, pietà ultramontana e strategie della memoria intorno ai resti umani di Daniel O’Connell

This essay reconstructs the history of the heart of the Irish patriot Daniel O’Connell, who died in Genoa in May 1847 while on a pilgrimage to Rome. It explores the religious and political dimensions of a complex operation of sym- bolic construction: the forging of a lay relic by ecclesiastics. This case illustrates the attempts at devotional use of the public figure of a political leader through the fusion of piety, memory, liturgy and emotion. Additionally, from a symbolic and ritual perspective, it probes the attempts to catholicise the national politi- cal sentiment in the decades following its consolidation at European and global level. In this way the study opens a window on the connections between the romantic practice of Catholic piety and the politicisation of cults in the time of the new secular religions.