Bids for Rising tricolour fly high at auction

THE tricolour used in the 1916 Easter Rising was sold yesterday to an anonymous bidder for €600,000.

The linen flag was believed to have flown over the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin and was captured by a British Army sergeant after the Rising, before ending up in the hands of a wealthy Catholic merchant family.

It was withdrawn from auction in Dublin last night after only attracting bids of €560,000.

But yesterday James Adam & Sons Auctioneers and Mealy’s Auctioneers said they had accepted an offer of €600,000 from an anonymous bidder.

In a statement, they confirmed that the 1916 flag would be staying in Ireland.

The sale of 480 items of immense historical and political significance at Adam’s auction house in Dublin yesterday was held to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising this weekend.

But the prospect of these items being sold to private bidders attracted criticism from Sinn Féin and two members of its youth wing were arrested yesterday for causing a disturbance at the auction. Dozens of police were drafted in to prevent any further disruption to the evening session.

The auction raised €3.5 million in total, with the most high profile item, the first draft of Ireland’s National Anthem, selling for €760,000.

The document contained the words and music of the Soldier’s Song (Amhrán Na bhFiann) and the signature of its composer, Peadar Kearney, who wrote it nine years before the Rising.

A spokeswoman for the auctioneers James Adam & Mealy said the new owner of the National Anthem wished to remain anonymous and she could not confirm if he or she was Irish. “But we believe that it will remain in the country,” she said.

The auction provided collectors with an opportunity to buy one of the 20 surviving copies of the Proclamation made by the provisional government of the Irish Republic and which was read out on the steps of the GPO in Dublin during the Rising.

It was sold for €200,000 after a three-way battle involving two telephone bidders and a member of the audience.

A tattered half-sheet copy of the Proclamation fetched €22,000, which was more than three times its guide price.

The Irish National Library lost out in the bidding for a goodbye letter from Tom Clark, the veteran Republican who was the oldest leader of the 1916 Rising to be executed.

A representative bid up from €20,000 to nearly €70,000 but was beaten by an anonymous phone bidder who paid €75,000.

There was strong interest in the 1916 bronze medal and ribbon awarded posthumously to Thomas Clarke, which was described as the holy grail for medal collectors.

The guide price of €15,000 was quickly exceeded and it was a telephone bidder who finally secured the medal for €105,000.

Clarke, who spent 15 years in a British prison, was presented with a carved oak box in 1899 by the City of Limerick, which sold at auction for €65,000. Another carved oak box presented to his wife Kathleen sold for €30,000.

There were numerous bids on items belonging to Michael Collins, and his original membership card of Sinn Féin was sold for €60,000. His Remington portable typewriter sold for €19,000 and a signed letter about Lady Hazel Lavery fetched €6,200.