Mementoes of 1916 Rising in prisoner’s autograph books
These books were signed and inscribed and drawn upon by fellow prisoners.
A 1916-17 prison autograph book from Reading Gaol with contributions from Seán T O’Kelly, Tomás MacCurtain, Arthur Griffith, Eamon de Valera, Eoin MacNeill and others is estimated at €3,000-€5,000.
De Valera’s prison autograph book from Dartmoor, 1917 carries the same estimate (pictured above).
Each of the 30 pages is ruled into four sections with the name, address, prisoner number and sentence filled out by each inmate. To some of these de Valera has added a code, LX or DX. Among the entries are Eoin MacNeill, Piaras Béaslaí and Count Plunkett.
An autograph album with 60 signatures (pictured below), including Michael Collins, W T Cosgrave, Thomas Ashe, Harry Boland, Eamon de Valera, Countess Markievicz, Arthur Griffith, Kathleen Clarke, Mrs Eamon Ceannt, Austin Stack and Madame O’Rahilly is estimated at €2,000-€3,000.
There is more than 100 lots devoted to The Rising in a sale of 500 items ranging in date from 1000 BC to 2000 AD.
An original copy of The Proclamation is, at €250,000-€350,000, the most expensively estimated lot.
Curiousities include the horsehair full bottomed judge’s wig (pictured below) made for Irish County Court Judge John William Hynes, estimated at €800-€1,000.
He was junior to Lord Chief Justice O’Brien who earned the nickname “Peter the Packer” for his policy of ensuring that juries were always pro-government in any trial of a remotely political nature.
Hynes, who became County Court Judge in Cork in 1916 was a noted cricketer who stills holds the record for the highest scores made by a university batsman in a First XI fixture with 241 runs for Dublin University against the Dublin Garrison XI.
The sale is on view at Whyte’s on Molesworth St, Dublin from 10am to 5pm today.
The venue for tomorrow’s sale is Freemason’s Hall on Molesworth Street.
Whyte’s say it it the largest and most important auction of memorabilia relating to the Rising.
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