MacNeill’s last-minute bid to call off Easter Rising to go under the hammer

A short letter whose 11 words helped change the course of Irish history is to be sold almost 98 years after it severely curtailed the Easter Rising.

The letter penned on Easter Saturday, April 22, 1916, by Irish Volunteers chief Eoin MacNeill, is one of around 20 he is thought to have dispatched to rebel leaders in an effort to call off the planned revolution.

Only two other copies are known of, one in the National Museum and one in the National Library, making it the only known copy to come to auction.