Auction of Collins’s hair shocks grandnephew

A grandnephew of Michael Collins has described the proposed sale of a lock of the Republican leader’s hair as macabre and undignified.

Solicitor Robert Pierse said he got “an awful shock” when he first heard the hair — estimated to be worth between €3,000 and €5,000 — was to go under the hammer on Wednesday at Adam’s Auctioneers in Dublin.

Mr Pierse has pleaded with the mystery seller to get in touch with him. He said he would be prepared to make a payment for the hair but was not willing to get involved in a public auction as he did not consider it to be a commercial item.

“A lock of a person’s hair is a body part and that should be buried with him,” said Mr Pierse, who is based in Listowel, Co Kerry.

He said he was not aware that there was a lock of General Collins’s hair in anybody’s possession but he would hate to see it being bought and “shoved up inside in a pub”.

According to reports, the keepsake was retrieved from Collins’s corpse in Dublin Castle by his sister, Kitty Sheridan — Mr Pierse’s grandaunt — but the identity of the current owner is not known to the solicitor or his family.

He said the auctioneer handling the sale would not divulge the name of the person who is believed to have taken possession of the lock of hair in 1938.

“If the person is stuck for money, and a lot of people are now and they are selling things like that to keep going, I’d certainly be prepared to pay for it or help the person out,” said Mr Pierse.

It is believed the hair was accompanied by a swab used to wipe blood from the wound on Collins’s head.