IRA move prompts eBay trade in memorabilia

DOZENS of pieces of IRA memorabilia have appeared on internet auction site eBay since the terror group announced the end of its armed campaign last week.

More than 150 items have been put up for sale including original 1981 Hunger Strike posters and a gun-shaped badge posted just two hours after the July 28 4pm statement.

Second-hand books, CDs, DVDs and bumper stickers also feature in the mass sell-off by anonymous vendors in Belfast, Derry and London anxious to profit from the IRA’s decision to go out of business.

A May 1981 copy of Republican newspaper, An Phoblacht, which was shrunk down to be smuggled into Republican prisoners on hunger strike in the H-blocks, has been bid up to €65 by 13 potential buyers.

The Belfast-based seller of the item said on the site: “In this edition, there is an exclusive interview with the IRA and pictures on two pages of an IRA training camp.”

A 1981 Hunger Strike poster featuring prisoners Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara is currently fetching bids of €59.53.

The vendor says: “You will get this for a bargain as I should be keeping it for next year for the 25th anniversary but it’s on sale now.”

The highest bid item in the IRA category is an Irish Easter Rising 1916 medal currently priced at €827 by 27 bidders.

Despite brisk bidding across the site, a copy of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’ memoirs, Hope and History, signed by the author, has so far failed to attract any bidders.

A biography of Martin McGuinness entitled IRA: From Guns To Government was put on the ebay site just five hours after the armed campaign officially ended at 4pm on July 28.

Tim Pat Coogan’s book, The IRA, is being offered for €10.89 by a Co Down reader.

Mr Coogan, a former Irish Press editor, said: “I’d have thought it would go for a bit more, but there you are. There seems to have been a lot of interest in the IRA recently, especially among younger people who want to know the history and background.”

Despite recent developments, Mr Coogan has ruled out another edition of the paperback. It was first published in 1970 and last revised by the author in 2000 to include the Good Friday Agreement.

Earlier this year, a bugging device which Sinn Féin claimed had been planted at its Belfast offices by MI5 appeared for sale on eBay.