100-year-old autographs capture republican activity

Previously unseen poems, slogans, and autographs of Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Countess Markievicz capture the swarm of republican activity in Clare to kickstart Éamon de Valera’s political career 100 years ago.

The valuable autograph book containing them has found its way back to the owners’ native Ennis. It will be on display ahead of the centenary of de Valera’s famous East Clare by-election victory of July 1917, weeks after his release from an English jail.

Among the contributions collected by then 18-year-old Kathleen Griffin, a local member of the women’s military organisation Cumann na mBan, was a slogan by Michael Collins.