Clodagh Finn: The Irish shop worker who became an Italian princess

The next time you are in Rome, recall Rosemary Barrett-Murphy who led  a rich and varied life

Rosemary Barrett-Murphy in Tatler magazine. Picture: Tatler

It seems unfair to begin an account of the extraordinary life of Rosemary Barrett-Murphy, shop assistant, nursing student, traveller and later Italian princess, with her untimely death but that is what made international headlines almost 50 years ago to the day.

When Princess Colonna, as she became, fell to her death from the fourth floor of a luxury apartment in Rome on January 23, 1977, it was front-page news.