BY PAULINE MURPHY
A NUMBER of items connected to Michael Collins, including a lock of his hair, were recently sold at Kilkenny auction house Fonsie Mealy’s summer rare book and collectors’ sale.
The auction saw an Irish tricolour flag, reputed to be the first one flown over the Curragh Army Camp in 1921, sell for €1,800.
Colonel Sean Collins Powell, nephew of Michael Collins, served as officer-in-command at the Curragh training camp and gifted the flag to the family of Captain RJ Thompson.
A collection of nine Free State brass army buttons mounted and framed in a hardwood box sold for €9,000. The buttons came with a handwritten note from Mary Collins Powell, sister of Michael Collins.
Mary’s note was addressed to General Eoin O’Duffy and she stated how the buttons were found in her dead brother’s tunic pocket on August 22nd 1922, the date he was killed at Beál na Bláth.
The buttons last went under the hammer in 2012 at the same auctioneers. On that occasion they sold for €4,250.
A gold 1921 Leinster Hurling Final medal won by Dublin was expected to sell for between €700 and €900 – instead it fetched €1,200.
The 1921 Leinster final between Dublin and Kilkenny took place in a packed Croke Park where Michael Collins was guest of honour. He addressed both teams before the match and posed for photographs before throwing in the sliotar to start the match.
Perhaps the most interesting item at the auction was the most intimate – a lock of the Big Fella’s hair, which sold for €4,400. The small snip of chestnut brown hair is taped to a patriotic postcard inscribed ‘Erin go Bragh’. The hair was snipped from the head of Collins as he lay in state in August 1922.
The personal item belonged to Major General Felix Cronin, a comrade of Collins who, in 1925, married Kitty Kiernan – the one-time fiancée of the slain statesman.
It previously sold in Belfast at Bloomfield Auction Rooms in 2012 where it fetched a staggering €21,000.
Meanwhile, Collins’ diaries have returned home to Clonakilty for the month of August.
After a hugely successful exhibition in August 2022 and 2023, Cork County Council, in partnership with the National Archives, has brought the diaries (1918-1922) back to the Michael Collins House Museum in his hometown of Clonakilty for the month.
This year, the exhibition will focus on August 1922, with the original diary pages for the first six days of August 1922 on display.
The pages detail his daily schedule, meetings and ‘to do’ lists giving an invaluable insight into his day-to-day life.
The diaries are on loan to the National Archives by the family of the late Liam and Betty Collins from Clonakilty and the Archives have also gratefully acknowledged the gift of the telegram notes to the State by Maureen Coughlan in Florida.
Admission to the exhibition is free, and the Michael Collins House Museum at 7 Emmet Square will be open from Tuesday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm and on Sundays from 10am to 5pm, for the duration. See www.michaelcollinshouse.ie
