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A TYPED SURRENDER letter, signed by 1916 Rising leader Patrick Pearse, has sold for £263,000 at a London auction today.
UK auction house Bonhams said that a ‘fierce bidding’ took place in the auction room for the letter, which sold at double the estimated price of between £80,000-£120,000.
Bonhams representative in Ireland, manuscript specialist Kieran O’Boyle, said that this wasn’t a major shock given the value of the historic document.
“The Order of Surrender is one of the most significant documents in Irish 20th century history, and I am not surprised that it was so keenly sought after, nor that it sold for such an impressive amount.”
Pearse’s Order of Surrender ended the 1916 Rising siege in Dublin city in April 1916 after nationalists including James Connolly and Thomas MacDonagh attempted to establish an independent Irish State.
Pearse, who was a schoolteacher by profession, was also leader of the Irish Volunteers and, as President of the Provisional Government, had read out the Proclamation of Independence outside the GPO on Easter Monday at the beginning of the Rising.
Other letters
It is not known exactly how many typed copies were produced, but it is thought to be in single figures.
Two surviving copies are held by the National Library of Ireland. Another, signed by Pearse and countersigned by James Connolly, is held at the Imperial War Museum, London.
In addition, there are known to be three handwritten drafts – one of which, the government is being pressured into buying before it’s sent to its international owner.
Uniquely, the typed copy sold today bears a tricolour stamp printed by the rebels at the time of the Rising depicting William Allen, Michael Larkin and William O’Brien, the ‘Manchester Martyrs’, who were hanged in Manchester for killing a police constable during a failed rescue attempt of two Fenian prisoners.
The stamp was possibly affixed to authenticate the order.
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Bad batch of illegal narcotics is being made out like a bad batch of pasteurised milk or baby food. These are drugs that have been mixed with anything and everything .
Step up the war against drugs, don’t appease them.
@Edward Vanderlee:
How is the war going ?
50+ years now.
@Edward Vanderlee: The war on drugs has been a complete and abject failure and the world has thankfully started to move on to different approaches. It’s not about rewarding or appeasing users and sellers, it’s about reducing harms to society as a whole. You may not particularly like or approve of the introduction of supervised injection centres, but I for one applaud them as a lesser evil than shooting up in alleyways and laneways in broad daylight. Get with the times, boomer.
@Kevin Collins: it’s also about Not punishing people who end up mostly through no fault of there own in addiction and or with mental health problems. We wouldn’t jail someone who had cancer but the jails are full of addicts. #childhoodtrauma
@T Paul Kelly: its not going well but it’s 100% the right thing to do.
I live a short walk from Thomas Street in Dublin. The amount of addicts in that area is terrible, publicly injecting.
No society should normalise that.
Support the addicts and jail the dealers.
@Edward Vanderlee: It’s not going well but it’s the right thing to do ? Think about that statement. The answer is counterintuitive but unfortunately we all have to wait for the less agile thinkers like yourself, to catch up with the rest of us. Then we can finally start changing policy, making a difference and saving lives.
@Declan Doherty: no need to resort to insults now Declan. I’m perfectly agile mentally.
I saw three people injecting eachother in the entrance of a hotel the other day on my way to work.
Those poor people. The poor gardai trying to police it too where the courts are a revolving door.
Nothing ageist about it… that’s not acceptable in any society.
I’m in the hostels and there was three deaths in my hostel alone while that batch was going around and I know of good few who died. Why has there been no reporting on that?
Would the author of this piece care to find out how many died during that bad batch?
Or are we too woke to print that kind of thing?
@Denis Rathsallagh Brady: how is that ‘woke’ in any way? Didn’t they have an article a week or two ago detailing a number of deaths to that point if i recall, do you not believe them or something?
@Setanta O’Toole: I obviously didnt read that article but it would be helpful if the figures were put into this article too.
Ive even given them the number for Merchants Quay Ireland.
You sure it was deaths due to this bad batch and not lives saved by Naloxone?
I mean, one knows the risks. Choices
Have to say well done to the department of health who see the value of harm reduction ( eg festival pill testing) – pity the Department of Justice seem to be trapped in the dark ages.
Here ill help you out.
Heres Merchants Quay phone number wont take you a minute to ring them.
(01) 524 0160
The police forces knows who are the dealers, yet no one is getting locked up
@Dominic Leleu: locking up those who do drive is counterproductive. We have overflowing prisons at the present time and you want to add more??? rehabilitation, awareness campaigns though workforces, schools, PLC colleges, 3rd level etc is the way to go.
@Dominic Leleu: forget the typo lol meant drugs not drive lol
@alan scott: those are mere bandages… As long as we have a drugs policy from the 1980s the only outcomes will be rich mob bosses and endless, needless death and crime.
Need to give it to lecturers and staff at all the third level colleges.
Hilarious that anyone thinks our rightwing government cares about saving lives.
80th worst healthcare system in the world.
75k homeless
Drugs policy from the 1980s, which is enriching gangs and killing the sick.
Suicide epidemic
Etc.
We – as a people – are far more likely to throw babies in a septic tank than help the poor and sick.
@Chris O’Brien: Multiple-choice question.
Are you:
a. deranged?
b. delirious?
c. profoundly delusional?
d. lying?
have your say