{"id":650406,"date":"2026-10-10T08:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T08:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/650406\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T08:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T08:36:15","slug":"an-intelligent-nonconformist-man-galways-homeless-millionaire-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/650406\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018An intelligent, nonconformist man\u2019: Galway\u2019s homeless millionaire \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

He inherited an estate worth \u20ac1.29 million, yet he never accessed the money. Instead, he chose to remain living in a homeless<\/a> hostel in Galway city centre, where he stayed for more than 10 years. His name was Victor Spaggiari<\/a>. He was an Italian citizen, and a long-term resident of Galway<\/a>. He died aged 65 on May 22nd, 2024. <\/p>\n

Why did a man with access to significant means spend the last 10 years of his life in a homeless hostel? <\/p>\n

Who was Victor Spaggiari and what led him to make these choices?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never considered money to be an important thing, and I don\u2019t think any intelligent person should,\u201d Victor Spaggiari wrote as a 14-year-old schoolboy in Milan in 1975.<\/p>\n

People spend \u201cempty lives in the continual search for it\u201d, his cursive handwriting reads in an essay kept by his family. \u201cYou could say that it was one of the worst inventions in the history of humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately in this society a man is only judged for the basis of the amount of money he can produce and accumulate, and not for his moral and intellectual qualities,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Victor Spaggiari was drawn to Galway for a very specific reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted to learn Irish,\u201d says his cousin Alberto Tota, his closest living relative and the head of a family-owned chemical manufacturing company outside Milan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why he ended up in Galway, because as you know, in that area it\u2019s widely spoken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnAn extract from an essay Victor Spaggiari wrote as a teenager in Milan, which was kept by his family, outlining his attitude to money. \"AnAn extract from an essay Victor Spaggiari wrote as a teenager in Milan, which was kept by his family, outlining his attitude to money <\/p>\n

An only child, Spaggiari grew up in a spacious top-floor apartment in central Milan. His father was a successful architect who had designed the building the family lived in; his mother loved high society.<\/p>\n

It was a comfortable background, but not a happy one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship with his parents was not the best,\u201d Tota says. \u201cIt was a very conflictual relationship with his mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Spaggiari turned 18 he moved into a smaller Milan flat owned by their grandmother, \u201cto be as independent as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very intelligent. He read a lot,\u201d Tota says. \u201cHe was probably shy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He began travelling, primarily to Ireland, drawn by a fascination with all things Celtic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went through a very wide range of religions when he was younger, from Hare Krishna to Scientology,\u201d Tota says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Polish chocolatier in Clare: \u2018There\u2019s something very special about Irish people\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

One day in the 2000s, he left Italy never to return. His Milan flat was \u201cabandoned\u201d, only opened up again many years later, coated in dust.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis parents never knew where exactly he was living,\u201d Tota says. \u201cBut they were always ready to help him when he phoned and asked for money. After all, he was their son.\u201d\t<\/p>\n

The first news about Spaggiari\u2019s difficult circumstances came with a telephone call to his mother in 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police phoned my aunt, saying that he had been taken to the hospital because they found him sleeping on the street,\u201d says Tota, who flew to Ireland to see his cousin in hospital in Tralee, Co Kerry. \u201cAt that time, he was drinking heavily, and the doctors were afraid he could die.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland was a good choice, I have to say. When I went to Tralee to meet him, even if he was in the hospital and not very present, I told him: \u2018Victor, you chose a really nice place to stay,\u2019\u201d Tota says. \u201cIt was wonderful there in Tralee, and all around there was the Ring of Kerry. The landscape was really marvellous. That was my first contact with Ireland. Not for nice reasons, but I said: \u2018Wow, beautiful. I have to come back.\u2019 And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spaggiari recovered and moved in to a bed-and-breakfast in Tralee. The owners kept in touch with Tota, trying to encourage a family reconciliation as they grew concerned about their guest\u2019s declining hygiene and the condition of his room.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Tota called Spaggiari\u2019s lodgings from a Milan hospital and asked to be put on to Victor. He informed his cousin that his father had died.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me: that\u2019s impossible,\u201d Tota says. <\/p>\n

Spaggiari\u2019s mother died a year later. Once again, \u201che didn\u2019t want to believe me\u201d, Tota says.<\/p>\n

With the deaths of his parents, Spaggiari became the principal heir of his parents\u2019 combined fortune, mostly accumulated through his father\u2019s work as an architect. Under Italian law, a sole surviving child must inherit at least 50 per cent.<\/p>\n

He never had a real house because he didn\u2019t want any responsibilities<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Alberto Tota<\/p>\n

Whether Spaggiari was aware of the inheritance but rejected it, was in denial about it, or was incapable of dealing with it is unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if he lived as a homeless person, he was probably happy like that. He never had a real house because he didn\u2019t want any responsibilities,\u201d Tota says.<\/p>\n

Spaggiari seemed to live out the credo he had expressed as a teenager, when he wrote in his essay that wealth and fine clothes held no appeal for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo find oneself in solitude and peace, read good books and listen to good music,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

From Tralee, Spaggiari moved on to Galway. There, he could be found most days sitting on a long wooden bench in the corner of the covered Cornstore Mall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say hello to Victor every morning like I\u2019d say hello to my colleagues,\u201d says Vinny Browne, manager of the nearby Charlie Byrne\u2019s Bookshop.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would be here in the morning from about nine o\u2019clock, usually until six o\u2019clock when the mall gets locked up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Browne knew him only as \u201cVictor\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"VinnyVinny Browne in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Galway. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

\u201cVictor usually had a plastic bag. He would often have the paper with him; Le Figaro and The Irish Times. I don\u2019t think you can buy an Italian newspaper in Galway. A bottle of water, maybe vodka sometimes. You would sometimes see him drinking but I don\u2019t think drinking was his problem. He wasn\u2019t a wino. That wasn\u2019t his thing. He was more controlled than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalls Spaggiari as routinely wearing jeans, variations of a plaid shirt, and rotating a black jacket and a blue denim jacket. \u201cHe didn\u2019t encourage contact with people. He didn\u2019t seek it. I think he had opted out. Initially he used to smoke. In recent years he didn\u2019t smoke any more, and I think I had some kind of interaction with him one day when someone offered him a cigarette and he said \u2018I quit\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something very likeable about him, I respected him. I thought he was an intelligent, interesting, nonconformist man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Byrne\u2019s Bookshop has an exterior wall in the mall, lined with shelves of books that are usually cheaper or more worn than the books inside the shop. Spaggiari often took books from these shelves to read during the day, returning them before he left. He occasionally went inside the bookshop too and bought books \u201cat neighbourhood rates\u201d, as owner Charlie Byrne puts it. <\/p>\n

\u201cArchaeology and folklore. That was his special interest. Irish fairy tales. Mythology,\u201d Browne says. \u201cThere was always an air of mystery about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI sometimes got him a small naggin of vodka,\u201d Byrne says. \u201cHe\u2019d be tipping away at the vodka very discreetly. You\u2019d never know that he had drink on him. He never begged for money. I gave it to him a few times \u2013 he always took it when I gave it to him, but he never asked for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe used to stand down by O\u2019Brien\u2019s Bridge and people would give him money but he never asked for it,\u201d Browne adds.<\/p>\n

\"O'Brien'sO’Brien’s Bridge where Victor used to stand a lot. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

The Caf\u00e9 Temple in the Cornstore Mall is gone now, but back when Spaggiari frequented the bench, he visited it once a week or so. Steve Taylor, now retired, ran the cafe as a non-profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe used to come in and just sit down. Once we saw him, one of our staff would say, \u2018Victor\u2019s here,\u2019\u201d he says. The first time Spaggiari asked for a sandwich, he specified chicken and cheese. Ever afterwards, he simply requested \u201cthat sandwich\u201d. He drank only sparkling water. The cafe always gave him the items for free. <\/p>\n

At the start of his time in Galway, he was sleeping rough at a bus shelter near Spanish Arch. He would occasionally avail of the cold-weather response initiative of Cope Galway, a long-standing social services and homeless charity that provides additional emergency beds during winter months.<\/p>\n

Over a decade ago, the Galway 2020 organisation, then based in the Cornstore Mall, noted Spaggiari\u2019s frequent presence by their office, and brought him to the attention of Cope, which runs the 26-bed Fairgreen Hostel for homeless men not far from Ceannt railway station. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe seat inside the Cornstore Mall where Victor sat most days. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

Spaggiari would end up spending the last 10 years of his life in the hostel.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst you try and understand what their situation and circumstance was, and that took time, to build up a relationship and build up trust with him,\u201d says Cope Galway assistant chief executive and team leader Martin O\u2019Connor. \u201cIf that outreach bit hadn\u2019t happened, he would have carried on sleeping rough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never told us why he came to Galway,\u201d says Paudie Cunningham, who also works at Cope. \u201cHe had a real connection with the land … He was real spiritual.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ardmore receives Ireland\u2019s Greenest Places award from Eamon RyanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Fairgreen Hostel does not generally provide long-term accommodation. Each man has his own single room, and is provided with three meals a day. They do not have to vacate the premises during the day if they don\u2019t wish to. The reasons men come to the Fairgreen Hostel vary, but the most common two are mental health challenges and addiction issues.<\/p>\n

Each resident also has a key worker who spends time with them to build a trusted connection, and try to figure out what particular support that person needs, whether it\u2019s access to things such as medical care or help with the paperwork that can lead to a way out of homelessness. The residents pay rent of \u20ac10 a night for the hostel. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate goal is for them to move on from services to a better place,\u201d says Cunningham.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictor was atypical of people you would see who use our homeless service,\u201d says O\u2019Connor. Referring to the unusual length of his stay, he says: \u201cThat would have been exceptional. But it was based on vulnerability. There wasn\u2019t another option for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing conventional about Victor,\u201d Cunningham says. \u201cHe was an enigma; a very private man. He very rarely spoke to anyone. He was very much into his books. He had his own personal library down there in Charlie Byrne\u2019s. He was into Celtic history, shamans, he was very alternative. He told us he had been a yoga master. He never had a phone. He was not connected to that side of the world at all. He wasn\u2019t in touch with society at all. He was living in his own head. That\u2019s the way I would describe Victor. He didn\u2019t communicate with anyone, and if you\u2019re not communicating with anyone, you\u2019re going to go internal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe liked his Perrier water,\u201d O\u2019Connor says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wouldn\u2019t drink anything else,\u201d Cunningham says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0 Travel \u2018I\u2019m swooning as I come in the door\u2019: A trip to Milan to buy cottons, linens and silksOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Cope team deduced over time that there had been some unspecified trauma in Spaggiari\u2019s life that had led him to leave Italy and become homeless in Galway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever had happened to him was still going on for him,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cAnd the fact that he was accommodated in a shelter was an improvement in his circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone who comes through the Fairgreen Hostel is asked to provide some basic information about themselves. \u201cWe would sit with them and do paperwork: name, surname, date of birth, place of origin, next of kin, mobile number, why are you presenting to the service, your GP, medication you may be on, addictions, mental health,\u201d says O\u2019Connor. <\/p>\n

Over time, in the course of assessing Spaggiari\u2019s housing needs and using information he had provided them with, Cope did their usual research into his background. \u201cThat gave rise to it becoming known he had access to funds,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. <\/p>\n

So Spaggiari knew he had considerable means?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cI know some people out there would look at this case and say, here you had somebody who had what most people can only dream about, in terms of the kind of wealth he had, and there he was occupying a space in a homeless service that someone else could have benefited from.<\/p>\n

\u201cStanding back and looking at his access to all that money, you\u2019d think he should be on his way, get his own housing sorted, because he had the means to do that. The reality was that he would most likely have simply returned to the street in that situation. He wasn\u2019t able. He had this inheritance but it didn\u2019t change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would have died on the streets if we didn\u2019t keep him,\u201d Cunningham says. \u201cThat\u2019s the reality of it. He didn\u2019t have the skill set to survive. He was an old young man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CrossCross on Victor Spaggiari’s grave at Rahoon Cemetery. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

Spaggiari was buried at Rahoon Cemetery in Galway, in Section W, Row 25, Plot 10. The graveyard\u2019s caretaker, Michael Davoren points out a fresh pink rose that someone left on the grave recently. Davoren was one of a handful of people who attended the funeral. <\/p>\n

The others included his cousin Tota, staff from Cope Galway, the undertakers conducting the funeral, and a couple of members of the public who had heard on the Galway grapevine that the familiar figure with the Italian accent and bushy white beard had died.<\/p>\n

Vinny Browne and Charlie Byrne, who attended the reposal at Conneely\u2019s on Flood Street, helped carry Spaggiari\u2019s coffin. He died intestate; probate was granted to Tota.<\/p>\n

Tota has wondered whether Spaggiari had autism. He is not aware that his cousin had any diagnosis for any condition. To his knowledge Spaggiari never had a job, or any romantic partner.<\/p>\n

He thinks back to the 1990s, when the two cousins bonded as young men in conversations about Spaggiari\u2019s Celtic interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, he passed to me some of his love for the Celtic culture, history, and Ireland,\u201d Tota says. On Spaggiari\u2019s recommendation, he visited a shop in Milan, Ceilt Siopa, and bought a triple-spiral necklace. <\/p>\n

\u201cI still wear it,\u201d Tota says. \u201cSl\u00e1n.\u201d<\/p>\n

Information about Cope Galway can be found at copegalway.ie<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He inherited an estate worth \u20ac1.29 million, yet he never accessed the money. Instead, he chose to remain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4500,3663,61,60,7727,43,976],"class_list":["post-650406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-galway","tag-homeless-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kerry","tag-news","tag-weekendreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}