AN ORIGINAL copy of the Proclamation of Independence, signed by one of those present in the GPO during the 1916 Rising, sold last night for a record price of €360,000.
Once fees and taxes are included, the new owner, a private Irish telephone bidder who intends for his purchase to remain in the State, will pay around €425,000, which is well above the previous record of €390,000 for a proclamation.
The signature of Seán McGarry, Tom Clarke's bodyguard and an eventual Dáil representative, may have pushed up the price, said Stuart Cole, the director of auctioneers Adam's.
"We know Tom Clarke was standing beside [Pádraig] Pearse when he read out the proclamation, so Seán McGarry couldn't have been standing that much further away," said Mr Cole.
"You're not going to get one signed by anyone closer to the event."
Its value was reinforced by the presence of four gardaí during the auction on St Stephen's Green.
The proclamation is amongst about 50 to survive the Rising, and one of only a handful to be signed by a participant.
The document is one of the best-preserved in existence, said Mr Cole.
"The paper the proclamation is printed on is pretty poor stock, so it does need to be conserved. Whoever buys it will probably bring it to a paper conservator and have it restored, but essentially it's in very good order."
Last night's auction of independence memorabilia included a battered red suitcase used by Seán MacDiarmada during his travels before the Rising, which sold for €8,500. That price was dwarfed by the €110,000 paid by a telephone bidder last night for MacDiarmada's 1916 Easter Week Combatant's Bronze Medal.
A small bronze sculpture called The Flying Column by Bríd Ní Rinn, intended to be the model for a much larger work on O'Connell St that was never built, sold for €42,000.
The Adam auction room was overflowing last night, and total sales exceeded €2 million. About 85 per cent of the items sold. Mr Cole said the interest in independence-related memorabilia was a sign of the times. "I think it's the changing political landscape.
"We're having 1916 parades - that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. You wouldn't have seen Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael pushing for parades.
"Plans are in hand to turn the GPO into a museum. The changing political landscape has made it a lot more acceptable for mainstream collectors to want to have this kind of material and to collect it," he said.