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KATHLEEN CLARKE
A collection of four letters received by her after the Rising, including a fine ALS from Sean McGarry in Lewes Jail,
2pp, March 1917. ‘I think often of Tom & Sean [Mac Diarmada] and of the wilderness Dublin must seem without
them .. I have several times gone over the week Tom and myself spent in Woodenbridge a good many years ago
- do you remember it? It was one of the laziest weeks either of us ever spent ..’, also mentioning a message from
Tom Ashe, Mrs. Rossa’s death, an injury to Cathal Burgess [Brugha], and suggesting he (Sean) would be the best
person to write Tom Clarke’s biography, and with a joking reference to a canary which Kathleen was minding for
Tom Hunter. Also an undated note from McGarry; an ALS on Lewes prison notepaper from Tom Hunter dated May
1917 (also mentioning the canary); and an ALS from Rose McDermott (sister of Sean) in New York, December 1916,
3 pp on black-margined paper. * Sean McGarry and Tom Hunter were close friends of Tom Clarke, IRB members
and participants in the Easter Rising.
Provenance: Collection of Kathleen Clarke
€1,000 - €2,000
731
CIVIL WAR
A collection of thirteen original military communications from Republican commanders in the Civil War, 13 - 27 July
1922, signed typescripts, mostly top copies, some on IRA headed notepaper, including TLS from Liam Lynch, Chief
of Staff, dated 25 July in Fermoy, addressed to QM (Quartermaster) Eastern and Northern Command [at that time
Harry Boland], stating that ‘the only case reported of enemy landings in the South so far was at Waterford, where
a large quantity of rifles and ammunition was landed off the Helga’; also six terse messages signed by Earnán Ó
Máille [Ernie O’Malley], A.A.C.S. [Acting Assistant Chief of Staff], mostly addressed to QM, 21-26 July, enquiring
about supplies of arms and ammunition, chemicals, explosives, funds, motor-cars, etc., including mention of ‘a
man who sails on a boat from Dublin to Hamburg weekly. I understand he brought some stuff over last night’; also
an interesting TLS from S. O’Connor, Acting QMG, 25 July, referring in cryptic terms to various operations and
persons; with two from Tomas O Deirg, Adjutant, one including a list of Brigades; and a few from other officers.
* These signed I.R.A. communications are very rare. It is surprising to find them in the collection of Kathleen
Clarke, who had no military involovement. They must be the papers which she was asked to hide by Harry Boland,
who was using her home as an office, one day in the summer of 1922 when a Free State raid was imminent.
Her youngest son Emmet hid them under his jumper [‘Revolutionary Woman’ p. 199; see also Fitzpatrick, Harry
Boland’s Irish Revolution p. 310].
Provenance: Collection of Kathleen Clarke
€2,000 - €3,000
732
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC
A printed reduced facsimile of the original Proclamation, closely following the type-style of the original but replacing
imperfections in the type, on a sheet of plain greyish paper 36.8 x 25 cms, the sheet recently rebacked.
This appears to be a copy of what has been described as the ‘Kansas’ version, since there is a copy in the P.S.
O’Hegarty Collection in Kansas. It appears to have been printed by lithography. Its origin and date is uncertain, but
an extensive analysis on the ‘Typefoundry’ web-page suggests a date possibly in the 1950s (P.S. O’Hegarty died in
1957). It is very scarce; the paper is thin and fragile.
€500 - €1,000
Lot 730
Lot 731
Lot 732