Cowen urges buyer to make Pearse letter available to State

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.

Mr Cowen told the Dáil that he was unable to say if the Government had bid for the document at James Adam salesrooms in Dublin on Wednesday night.

“I only heard this morning that this historic document was sold for €700,000 yesterday. I can only hope that the buyer would be a person or institution who would be able perhaps to make it available for our own archives or artefacts for the future.