RARE BOOK & COLLECTORS’ SALE 12th -13th December 2023

79 Fonsie Mealy’s Est. 1934 614. [O’Casey (Sean)] Thomas Ashe .... by Sean O’Cathasaigh 8vo D. (Fergus O’Connor) n.d. [1917] Broadside, printed with black lined border one side only, approx. 8¾” x 5¼”, tipped onto block card. Sole Edition. A poem in six stanzas each of five lines, commencing ‘The Children of Eireann are listening again...’ Ex. Rare. Ayling & Durkan A3. * Thomas Ashe was a personal friend of Sean O’Casey. This is his third publication; together with Fogarty (M.) Bishop of Killaloe Irish Bishop Speaks - The Death of Thomas Ashe - The Bishop of Killaloe Protest, single page, pasted down. Scarce. (2) €300 - €400 615. Republican Interest: Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependents Fund - Catalogue of Gift Sale - Mansion House, 8vo, D. n.d. (c. 1918), ptd. wrappers. Scarce. (1) €150 - €200 616. Republican Music: Gaelic Press - Clarke (Richard) The Prison Grave of Kevin Barry, Music by Joseph Stanley, 4pp folio D. (Gaelic Press) c. 1920; also O’Neill (Phil) The Felons of Our Land , published by J.J. Walsh, Dublin c. 1920. Four pages 4to with illustrated oval portrait of Séan Mac Diarmada on front cover. As music, w.a.f. Both Very Rare. (2) €100 - €150 617. Childers (Le Commandant Erskine) La Terreur Militaire en Irlande, 8vo Paris 1920. First French Edn., trans. by J. Gros. hf. title, 72pp., partly unopened, orig. printed wrappers. Good. Scarce. (1) €130 - €180 618. Irish Politics: [Duggan (Eamon)et al] The Constructive Work of Dail Eireann No. 1 & No. 2, 2 vols., D. (Talbot Press Ltd.) 1921, ptd. wrappers, worn. (2) €120 - €140 619. MacSwiney (Terence) martyred Lord Mayor of Cork . An original paid Cheque drawn on his account at Banc na Mumhan & Laighean Teo. , dated 19.v.20, payable to Convent of the Good Shepherd, signed in Irish 'Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne,' countersigned rear by Sr. Teresa Barden. During his brief term as Lord Mayor, MacSwiney disbursed his entire salary in charitable donations, of which this was evidently one. In 1920 £1 was worth a good deal more than it would be now. MacSwiney was arrested at City Hall on 12 August 1920, a few months after signing this cheque. He was sentenced for possession of restricted documents, went on immediate hunger strike, and died in Brixton 74 days later. His long suffering and death marked a turning point in opposition to British rule. (1) €250 - €350 620. Oglaigh na hEireann (Irish Republican Army) . Special Communique issued by the Army Council, dated 10 September 1941. Tall narrow folio, 4 pp (single folded sheet), one corner frayed without loss. A remarkable document, stating that Stephen Hayes, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, has been arrested [by the IRA itself ], charged with treachery and conspiracy to betray the Republic, imprisoned and sentenced to death, and that he has ‘expressed a desire to make a complete confession’. The remainder of the document is taken up with his alleged confession, which states that he had discussions with Dr. James Ryan, Minister for Agriculture, [Garda] Chief Superintendent Martin Lynch and others about IRA plans and activities. It claims that Dr. Ryan incited the IRA to carry out the arms raid on the Magazine Fort, so that the Government could move against certain Irish Army officers whom it wished to remove, that he encouraged the IRA to raid banks for funds, and much else. * Hayes escaped from IRA custody and issued his own account of these events (published in full in ‘The Bell’), alleging that his ‘confession’ was secured by torture. The truth of the whole affair was never fully cleared up, but it seems likely that there was some contact between Hayes and Dr. Ryan and others, in the general context of divisions within the IRA about Sean Russell’s bombing campaign in England. This IRA statement was suppressed and is rare. (1) €250 - €350 614 619 615 620