Rising prices: Sotheby’s auctions Irish proclamation of independence

A NEWLY-discovered copy of the Irish proclamation of independence will go up for auction at Sotheby’s next month.

Signed by the printer Christopher Brady, it is one of approximately 20 surviving copies, and has a guide pride of between £40,000 and £60,000 (€61,000 to €91,000).

The auction on July 8 should attract plenty of Irish interest, according to Arabella Bishop, head of Sotheby’s Dublin office.

The copy of the proclamation went on show in Dublin recently and attracted more than 500 viewers

One party which will not be bidding is the National Museum of Ireland. The museum already has a copy of the proclamation, as does the National Library and the museum at Kilmainham Gaol.

“From a curatorial point of view, we wouldn't be interested,” a staff member said yesterday. “Normal museum practice internationally is that if you have one of something, you wouldn't get a duplicate.”

The copy, measuring 29.9 by 19.9 inches, was printed at Liberty Hall on Easter Sunday 1916, marking the beginning of the Easter Rising and “effectively inaugurating modern Irish history”, according to Sotheby’s.

Although 2,500 were intended to be produced, only around 1,000 were actually printed. Most of these were destroyed in the storming of Liberty Hall.

The copy in the National Museum is the only other recorded copy with Christopher Brady’s signature.

The original manuscript did not survive the Rising.