Famine letters donated to archive

A collection of hand-written letters giving a poignant account of the Famine is to be donated to an archive and ultimately made available for academic research, it was announced tonight.

The documents were due to go under the hammer tomorrow but Adams Auctioneers, which was organising the sale, said they are to be kept together.

The letters came from a private collector and had originally been found in the archives of Dublin law firm Stewart and Kincaid, which acted as agents for landlords on a large scale.

Stuart Cole, Adams director, would not be drawn on which archive is to receive the documents.

“The good news is they’re not going to be split up, they’re not leaving the country and they’re going to be kept together as a single collection and they will be available here in Ireland for academic research, so they will be given to an archive in here in Ireland,” Mr Cole said.

The letters give detailed accounts of the Famine from struggling tenants as well as landlords.

It had been suggested they should be donated to, or purchased by, the state given their historical significance.

In a statement, the auctioneers said it was agreed to donate the letters after successful negotiations with Kennys of Galway, the well-known book and manuscript dealer, acting as intermediary.

Some 128 individual lots were estimated at less than €1,000 and were aimed at private collectors, while another 20 lots, with between 70 and 200 documents, were expected to go from between €2,000 up to €10,000.

Mr Cole said the remainder of the sale will go ahead, which includes works of art inspired by the Famine by sculptors such as John Behan and Rowan Gillespie.