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ARTHUR GRIFFITH AND PADRAIG MACMANUS
An autograph signed letter from Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein, to the Irish-Argentine
businessman Padraic MacManus, congratulating him on his recent marriage. One page,
dated Oct. 24 1907, on the paper of ‘The “Sinn Fein” Printing and Publishing Company’.
‘May you and Mrs. MacManus live long and happily and be with us here before many
years. I am your debtor for many letters but I am going to discharge this debt by a vast
letter soon. Till then, Is mise le meas mór ..’
With a good signature, signed with a flourish, and with the original envelope, postally
used, with an Argentine address. It is interesting that Griffith and MacManus were
evidently friends of long standing. MacManus was a brother-in-law of another Irish-
Argentinian, William Bulfin.
€200 - €400
657
“I WISH THE WILD GEESE WOULD ONLY RETURN ..”
MAJOR JOHN MACBRIDE AND PADRAIC MACMANUS
An autograph signed letter, on notepaper of Dublin Corporation Water Bailiffs Dept., 2 pp
(folded sheet), from Major John MacBride to the Irish-Argentinian businessman Padraic
MacManus, thanking him for sending a copy of his publication ‘Fianna’.
‘I trust that the “Fianna” is still flourishing and that it will nourish and keep alive a love of
Ireland in the hearts of her exiled children & their descendants. I wish the “Wild Geese”
would only return to us. Ireland needs stout hearts & strong hands today more than ever.
I send you by this post a copy of “Irish Freedom”, a little monthly journal published in
Dublin. It has the right ring.’
Pádraic MacManus was a successful Irish-Argentinian businessman and IRB activist. He
published seven numbers of ‘Fianna’ in Argentina between 1910 and 1913 (see copies
elsewhere in this sale). Major John MacBride, executed after the 1916 Rising, was a long-
standing opponent of British imperial interests, and organised a force to fight with the
Boers in the South African war. He married Maud Gonne in 1903. Letters from him are
rare.
€500 - €800
Lot 656
Lot 657