Poster sold for an arm and a leg.

international | consumer issues | other press Thursday December 09, 2004 21:20 by gavel?!?! - "love the orange tie Bertie!"

1916 proclamation which was published in Dublin

once upon a time, 100 years before the Reclaim the Streets party 2016, a number of misfits, have a go types, intellectuals, teachers, and biographically scant men from the provinces of Ireland, paid Mr Christopher Brady a small and nominal sum of several shillings to their mate to print a few copies of their "proclamation".

Their names were-
Padraig Pearse, James Connolly, Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh, Sean MacDiarmada, Count Joseph Plunkett & Eamonn Ceannt

They were very proud of it, and put their names in capital letters at the bottom.
They died under suspicious circumstances later that year.

It was the same year the Lord Kitchener saw the one milionth copy of his snappy "Your country needs you!" recruitment poster for the slaughter of the trenches printed. He was very proud of it, and it helped send many millions of young men to their death. He died under suspicious circumstances a year later.

Yesterday an unknown buyer bid the requisite 390,000€ or "308,108 old style punts" or "an arm and a leg when the comission is taken into consideration" to add one of the only 20 known copies of this poster to a wonderful private collection which includes a colourful blue and white poster which proclaimed "Ulster says no to the Anglo-Irish agreement!" which younger Messrs Paisley and Robinson plastered across the GPO and D'Olier Street one early morning in November 1995.

These truly are "posters of history".

C/P of the Irish times report :-

Tim O'Brien




An original copy of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence made a record €390,000 when it was auctioned in Dublin last night.

The proclamation, which was found in a cupboard in a family home, is one of only 20 known to still exist. It had a pre-auction estimate of €150,000.

The auction in the packed James Adam saleroom in St Stephen's Green saw the bidding start at €70,000 and rise rapidly in bids of €5,000 with a man in the front row making many of the offers.

Telephone bids were accepted, as well as offers from potential buyers in the room.

At €370,000, the auctioneer Mr James O'Halloran, coaxed the last two offers - one from a person in the hallway and the other from a telephone bidder - before bringing down the gavel and selling the copy to the anonymous telephone bidder.

After the auction a spokeswoman for James Adam said no statement would be made on the owner's identity or nationality.

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, who also has responsibility for Heritage, said he had not bought the copy on behalf of the State. Nor, to the best of his knowledge, was it purchased by anyone else acting on behalf of the Government, he said.

"We have a couple of copies already," he said, remarking that the one sold last night was a "particularly fine" copy.

The price is the highest achieved at auction for an original copy of the proclamation.

Another copy, signed by the printer Mr Christopher Brady, was sold for £100,000 sterling last August.

The State owns copies in Leinster House and the National Museum. The copy sold yesterday was authenticated by staff at the National Library, which has the State's third copy.
© The Irish Times (the Irish Times is a charitably institution, and will glady donate a copy every day to unemployment centres if you ask them nicely)

If you've never read "the poster" this is what it said-

POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
___________________________
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it to arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God. Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, in humanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.


*******************
Please note that this is out of © and you can print it up without encurring legal problems of any kind, howver Messrs Paisley and Robinson still have the © on "Ulster says No to the Anglo-Irish agreement!"
It is worth considering that this poster was very much a "jewel" of its time. Read it carefully and think to yourself, would any misfits, have a go types, intellectuals, teachers, and biographically scant men from the provinces of Ireland, write something like that today? No they most certainly wouldn't. They'd probably make it a bit snappier.
"put it one page please". "put in a soundbyte".

Ah well that's history.
:-)