THE anonymous buyer who paid €700,000 for Padraig Pearse’s 1916 surrender note should make it available to the State archives, Finance Minister Brian Cowen said yesterday.

A surrender note written by Irish revolutionary icon Padraig Pearse fetched €700,000 – almost 10 times its guide price – at auction in Dublin tonight.

The Government could purchase the hand-written surrender note from the revolutionary icon Padraig Pearse which goes under the hammer this week, it emerged today.