The second year of the auction of Irish Independence-era memorabilia fetched 21st-century prices, writes Shane Hegarty.
Five minutes into the evening session at Tuesday's Independence auction, Tom Clarke's Irish Volunteer membership card came up, and the assembled crowd was given an early idea of how they should treat the catalogue prices.
The lot was estimated to sell at between €1,500 and €2,000. It went for €22,000. There were gasps in the room as the price edged upwards, pushed by two bidders. When the hammer finally came down, the rustle of paper may have been the sound of the auctioneers as they browsed through their yacht catalogues.
Adam's salesroom on St Stephen's Green was so packed that people leaned against the walls and hunkered near the rostrum. They hung about in the corridor, on the stairs and in the lobby, where they could hear the action through speakers. In the room, people were using their paddles as fans in the heat. They wouldn't have wanted to cool themselves at the wrong moment, or they might have ended up wondering where to hang an original Proclamation (sold for €240,000).
One item never went to auction. A letter written by Patrick Pearse on the eve of his execution had been withdrawn that morning after a mysterious buyer bought it for the State. It put a lid on questions of its provenance, raised because of suggestions it may have been part of the St Enda's collection, left to the State by Pearse's sister, Margaret. The National Museum now possesses the letter. But the controversy opened up other questions about the impact of a frenzied market.
"Given the prices they're achieving when they come on to the market," says Pat Cooke, former curator of the Pearse Museum and Kilmainham Gaol, and the person who had raised questions of the Pearse letter, "the questions we need to ask are, is this what it purports to be and does the person who is selling it have title to sell it?"
This was the second year of the Independence auction, organised by Adam's and Mealy's, and once again prices were extraordinary. Independence-era memorabilia is big money since last year's 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising. On Tuesday, a ticket for the Dublin-Tipperary match on Bloody Sunday sold for €30,000, 10 times its estimate. Only a month ago, a ticket for the same match was sold for €7,500.
WITH THE CENTENARY due in 2016, the market will continue to simmer. But, with a finite amount of material floating around, it may make forgery a tempting option.
"We go to great lengths to establish the authenticity of the items we're selling," says Adam's director Stuart Cole. "And we also go to a certain amount of trouble in relation to the people we're selling them for."
"There's certainly a sufficient incentive for someone to start forging material," believes Cooke. "High-class photocopies of a 1916 Proclamation, for instance." Lar Joyce, curator of military history at the National Museum of Ireland, agrees. "The first thing you have to do, as a curator, is prove that an item is what it says it is. But, as prices rise, it's definitely in someone's interest to spend time figuring out Pearse's handwriting."
Of more immediate concern is how the promise of money has stemmed the flow of people donating material for patriotic reasons. The pre-auction sale of the Pearse letter proved that there are still some willing to ensure that items of historical interest stay in public ownership. And it does bring certain tax advantages. When an original Proclamation was presented to the State last year by the family of the late Joseph McCrossan, the Government helped them navigate the tax benefits. They're seen as a quid pro quo, allowing the State to get a valuable item, even if the public coffer will lose a certain amount in the long run.
However, there is the fear that the big prices are sending people to the auction houses rather than the museums. "People aren't donating as much any more," says Joyce. "Or they'll donate, but only if it's on display. Or if there's a loan agreement and the item is insured for half a million. I call it the 'Antiques Roadshow syndrome'. People used to come in and ask 'what is this?' Now, because of the internet, they know what it is. They just want to know about price."
And what can you do with a Proclamation? Not much. According to Joyce, it can go into a watertight box and then a safe. Or the buyer spends €10,000 on an exhibition case, and more on environmental controls and security that will satisfy specialist insurers. And they'll need to keep it away from the window.
"They were made on cheap paper," says Joyce. "If you put one in direct sunlight, it would be destroyed in two months."