A very interesting collection of ephemera relating to the 1916 Dublin Easter Risings is to be sold in Tennants Auctioneers’ Militaria & Ethnographica Sale on 6th March.
From the Monday 24th April to Sunday 29th April 1916, a small radical group of Irish republicans enlisted the Irish Volunteers to lead an uprising against English rule in Ireland, taking advantage of the distraction of the Great War. Defeated after a swift British military response, the Rising and the subsequent execution of the rebellion leaders by the British bolstered Irish support for independence and paved the way the for the eventual split.
Included in the lot is a coloured lithographic recruitment poster for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, an organisation which supported the Rising. A Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook, Easter 1916, published the following year by the Weekly Irish Times based on a collection of articles giving a details account of the Rising and list of casualties and prisoners, is also of note. Pamphlets and membership cards for the Irish Volunteers are joined by Dublin Opinion magazines for 1923 and an Irish Citizen Army Emergency Order for 24 haversacks.
A letter signed by Francis Sheehy-Skeffington is also included, together with a printed speech by the writer and non-violent radical activist; Sheehy-Skeffington is considered a martyr of the Easter Risings, having been arrested whilst trying to stop the poor Dubliners looting and then executed by the British under suspicious circumstances. A subscription form to the Tomas Aghas (Thomas Patrick Ashe) Memorial Fund is also a reminder of the casualties of the Rising; Ashe was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers, and he died aged 32 during a force-feeding having been on hunger strike whilst imprisoned by the British in Mountjoy prison.
This rare collection is offered for sale with an estimate of £400-600 (plus buyer’s premium).
