Daniel O’Connell and the Motif of Public Monuments in Joyce’s “The Dead”

Abstract: In “The Dead,” an important motif of memorialized figures consists of Wellington’s Monument and the statues of King Billy and Daniel O’Connell. The meaning of this motif can only be political, but it seems to lack symbolic unity owing to the Irish nationalism of O’Connell that conflicted with the English imperialism of William of Orange and the Duke of Wellington, a paradigmatic “West Briton.” But these historical figures harmonize thematically in their focus on the Penal Laws and, in particular, the de facto cooperation in 1829 between O’Connell and Wellington in repealing the Penal Laws, something for which extreme Irish nationalists blamed O’Connell. Joyce agreed with them. Gabriel Conroy is symbolically aligned with each of the trinity of memorialized figures, especially with O’Connell, his fellow orator. As a consequence, Gabriel’s sexual-emotional disappointment, and the stereotypical attitudes informing it, become metaphors for the complicity of Ireland in its own ongoing political subjugation.