Antiques: Rare bird book, handcuffs and a shrine for St Patrick's bell
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The wise and slightly indignant-looking old owl which graces the catalogue cover for Fonsie Mealy's two-day Christmas rare book and collectors auction next week offers a clue to something special within. The rarest of all English bird books, one of just 60 sets of the first edition of William Lewin's , leads the sale.
Complete with 323 original watercolour illustrations by Lewin of birds and eggs in gouache some heightened with gum Arabic this outstanding work of ornithology is in seven volumes. The estimate for this very fine copy is €17,500-€25,000.
Among the more unusual offerings is a c1885 copy of the Shrine for the Bell of St Patrick. The original shrine from which this cast was taken — made to contain a bell reputedly owned by St Patrick — dates to around 1100 and is in the National Museum of Ireland.
There is a copy at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This one is estimated at €6,000-€8,000. In the 1860s the South Kensington Museum (now the V and A) campaigned for copies of artefacts to be made so that knowledge could be spread widely and by 1867 no less than 15 European heads of state signed a convention for international exchange.
Fermoy escaped the very worst ravages of famine in Ireland, but it had a narrow escape. Among 1170 lots on offer in Castlecomer, on Wednesday and Thursday, are two manuscript books for the poor rate in Fermoy in 1847, when hunger was at a peak, and 1859.
The 1847 book is signed by William Cooke-Collis, chairman of the board of guardians and Roderick O'Flanagan, clerk of the union and others. In his book about the famine in North East Cork published in 1986 by Eigse Books the historian Edward Garner observes: “It will have to be said that, had the Fermoy Poor Law Union not possessed the Board it did, then it would have joined the ranks of Skibbereen and Bantry. Fermoy escaped by the skin of its teeth.” Lot 706 is estimated at €600-€800.
A 1939 copy of signed by James Joyce, is estimated at €3,000-€4,000 and signed by Seamus Heaney, is estimated at €2,500-€3,500.
The Westport House copy of the 1789 sole edition of Surveys of the Harbours by William O'Brien Drury including Blacksod, Valentia, Bear Haven, Corke and Waterford is another prize lot. This one is estimated at €3,000-€4,000.
Collectibles include a set of heavy steel handcuffs said to have been used by Michael Collins (€1,000-€1,500), a lady's Blueshirt uniform (€2,000-€3,000) and a gold 1904 All Ireland hurling championship medal won by Tullaroan, Kilkenny (€4,000-€6,000).
There is an Irish library of fishing books, a private collection of illustrated and hand-coloured volumes, the library of Nelson Bell of The Bell Gallery, Belfast, and part one of the Dr Phillip Murray collection of Seamus Heaney.
The auction is on view in Castlecomer from 10am to 5pm on Monday and Tuesday. Lots 1-622 will come under the hammer on Wednesday from 10.30am with lots 623 to 1191 from 10.30am on the following day. The catalogue is online.