RARE BOOK AND COLLECTOR'S SALE July 30th & 31st, 2024

81 Fonsie Mealy’s Est. 1934 631. [Milligan, Alice]. A truly magnificent large Tara Brooch, in 18-carat gold, (Hopkins & Hopkins, Dublin) with hallmarks and ‘Déanta in Éirinn’ stamp, engraved inscription rear ‘d’Éilis / le fíor-mheas & gáirdeachas / ó n-a cómh Gaedhealaibh i Lunndain’ [‘To Alice / with great esteem and rejoicing from her fellow-Gaels in London’]. Alice Milligan [1866-1953] came from a prosperous Methodist family near Omagh, Co. Tyrone. Her father, a businessman, was an RIA member and antiquarian; her sister, Charlotte Milligan Fox, became a folk-song collector. Alice became interested in the Irish language, and decided to devote her life to the ideal of an ‘Irish-Ireland’. She was a prolific poet and playwright, and with her friend Ethna Carbery she founded the influential Shan Van Vocht periodical, which published early work by James Connolly. She was also a member of Inghinidhe na hEireann, the radical women’s group. She was deeply upset by the Civil War, and largely withdrew from public activity thereafter. In 1932 she returned to Omagh, where she lived thereafter in genteel poverty. She received an honorary D. Litt. from NUI in 1941. The occasion for the present gift is perhaps a significant personal anniversary? * By Tradition suggested to have been presented on her return to Ireland from England. As a gift from Alice to the present Vendor’s family by descent. €5,000 - €6,000 628. Signed by Tom Clarke [Clarke, Tom] Irish American Athletic Club, Celtic Park, Long Island City, N.Y. Membership Card no. 1012, Season of 1906, issued to Thomas Clarke, and with his unmistakeable signature. A rare memento of the great Fenian, first signatory of the 1916 Proclamation. Born in the Isle of Wight, where his Irish father was serving in the British Army, Clarke went to the United States as a young man. He joined Clan na Gael (the American Fenian organisation), and in 1883 was sent to Britain on a bombing mission. He was quickly captured (possibly betrayed) and imprisoned under harsh conditions. Released in 1898, he went again to the United States, where he married Kathleen Daly (niece of his prison colleague John Daly). He became a US citizen in 1905, but returned two years later, set up a tobacconist’s shop in Dublin, and began the reorganisation of the IRB which led in time to the rising of 1916. Afterwards he was tried by court-martial and executed on 3 May 1916, the oldest of the signatories but still under 60 years of age. His signature is scarce. (1) €3000 - €4000 Alice Milligan 629. Parnell (Charles Stewart) A good signature, Chas. S. Parnell, dated Feby 6 / [18]86, on a plain card. Signed when Parnell was at the height of his political eminence, in the month when Capt. O’Shea was elected in a Co. Galway bye-election, and two months before Gladstone introduced his first Home Rule Bill. €200 - €300 630. Medals: War of Independence & The Emergency: [Co. Louth] A1921- 71 Jubilee Medal, with Celtic design suspension bar coloured ribbon and Cogadh na Saoirse Medal; together with a Serebhis Naisiunta (1939-46) Medal with suspension and double bar, red and white ribbon, Re na Prainne Medal (Forsa Cosanta) together with a Oglaigh na hEireann Booklet and a W.D.F. Handbook. Provenance: G. (“Joe”) Fitzsimmon, Dundalk, Co. Louth €400 - €600