Rare piece of Patrick Pearse memorabilia fails to sell at auction

Patrick Pearse’s Irish Volunteers membership card has been withdrawn from auction after failing to make its reserve.

The card, dated December 9th, 1913, was valued at between €150,000 and €250,000 at an online auction in Whyte’s in Dublin.

The card had been given by Pearse’s mother, Margaret, to one of his mentors, Micheál Mac Ruaidhrí. Mac Ruaidhrí gave it to his daughter, Bríd, who gifted it to the anonymous seller. It attracted a single bid of €130,000.

Auctioneer Ian Whyte admitted that the estimate “may have put people off”.

Galway v Mayo: The unchanging but variable rivalry that keeps the West awake

---

I spent 22 years as a problem drinker. Here are 10 things I’ve learned since I quit

---

Una Mullally: That They May Face the Rising Sun is a reminder to cherish the natural world

---

This couple lived on Great Blasket with no electricity or running water. Here’s what they did next

---

“It’s a small item, quite specialised. We thought it was worth the money, but they are very hard to value these things correctly,” he said.

A letter from Pearse regarding St Enda’s, the school he founded in Rathfarnham, was sold for €4,800.

Medals belonging to Vinny Byrne, one of the best-known members of Michael Collins’ squad, sold for €15,000. Byrne gave his testimony about his actions on Bloody Sunday 1920 to Robert Kees as part of Ireland: A Television History in the 1970s.

A signed photograph of War of Independence veterans including Byrne and other members of the squad sold for €3,000, three times its top reserve price at auction.

An appeal from pro-Treaty Sinn Féin to help cover the costs of the June 1922 general election in the newly established state went for €5,800, almost six times the original reserve.

A proclamation by the Free State government aimed at Rory O’Connor, one of the leaders of the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War, sold for €3,000. It was guiding at between €600 and €800. There was also strong demand for a pro-Treaty election poster which sold for €3,400 having guided at between €500 and €700.

A photograph from August 1920 of a building burned during anti-Catholic pogroms in Lisburn sold at auction for €1,150.