[Irish Rebellion and the Easter Rising]

Approximately 22 pamphlets and books, 8 broadsides and handbills, and about 28 autograph items, Dublin and London, circa 1910–25.

Condition as described in catalogue entry.
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A fascinating archive of material relating to the struggle for independence in Ireland. 

Of particular interest are two autograph letters signed from Michael Collins to his fiancée Catherine Brigid "Kitty" Kiernan, written from London, 31 March and 1 June 1922, when Collins was part of the Irish delegation, negotiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty. 31 March: "We came to an agreement on certain things with Craig yesterday — I am not very sanguine about the future from any point of view. We have however secured release of all the prisoners….But the news from Ireland is very bad and the 'powers that be' here are getting very alarmed and there may be a bust up any moment. Were it not for the awful consequences I'd almost welcome it. It would be so pleasant to be relieved of all responsibility — yet one has the responsibility it would be cowardly to shirk from standing up to it. The whole business is casting a gloom over me and in spite of what is a big human hope I cannot keep thinking that as a people we are destined to go on dreaming, vainly hoping, striving to no purpose until we are all gone." 1 June as Collins is ending his stay in London: "Things have got very much worse overnight & I'm looking forward now to my last appointment with them. I'm returning tonight no matter what happens as I feel I can do no more good here. Ireland will have cause to remember her present day extremists. The whole thing is ghastly but I'll tell you more about it when I see you. It was only after my scribble yesterday I heard of Joe McGuinness' death. He is a great loss to us but apart from that I feel the personal loss much more keenly. He was the one most responsible for the recent peace. It makes the present position all the more tragic." Collins had planned to wed Kitty Kiernan in November of that year. He was killed in an ambush by anti-Treaty forces at the crossroads of Béal na Bláth in County Cork on 22 August 1922.

The collection includes a copy of the octavo proclamation of the Irish Republic, Poblacht Na H Eireann, read from the steps of the Dublin G. P. O. by P. H. Pearse on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916 — a printed broadside for the Great Recruiting Meeting, 9 April [1916], laid down and marked on the mount "It is said that it was originally intended that the rebellion should break out at this meeting" — two copies of the Irish War News, vol. 1, no. 1 (all published) — an AMS by James Connolly, being copy contents of The Workers' Republic, dated 17 July 1915; an autograph menu of lunch to Clement Shorter, signed in Irish and English by Michael Collins — pamphlets by Pearse, A. Newman, Æ (George W. Russell) and others — letters and signatures of Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera, Erskine Childres, John MacBride, W. T. Cosgrave, The O'Rahilly (Michael Joseph O'Rahilly), Kevin O'Higgins, Desmond Fitzgerald, and others —  engraved visiting-card of Maud Gonne, with her Paris address.

Books in the collection include: The Rebellion in Dublin, April, 1916. (1916). With mounted photographic illustrations — Dairmuid Ó Donnabáin Rosa, 1831–1915. Souvenir of Public Funeral to Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, August 1st, 1915. Second edition. 1915 — Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins. Photographic illustrations. Nd — Éamon de Valera's copy of Frank Gallagher's The Invisible Island: The History of the Partition of Ireland (London, 1958), signed and dated 3 May 1958 by de Valera.