A Government TD has called on the State to buy the flag used by the Volunteers to signal their surrender at the end of the 1916 Easter Rising.
The “flag of truce”, a 40sq cm white linen handkerchief, is being offered for sale by auction house Fonsie Mealy on Tuesday in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny.
The auctioneers have estimated its value at between €10,00 and €15,000.
Clare TD Cathal Crowe raised the upcoming auction at last week’s Fianna Fáil parliamentary meeting and said he would like the State to acquire it. He asked his party colleague, Minister of State for Heritage Christopher O’Sullivan, to explore the idea.
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Crowe said the flag, though small, played an important part in Irish history.
“I hate to see a lot of items just to go into a private collection,” he said. “If it’s of particular importance to our nation State, I think it should be acquired.”
He said the estimates being quoted were “small money for a very important artefact”.
Mealy’s website states the handkerchief is historically believed to be the exact flag of truce shown by Capt Michael William O’Reilly.
O’Reilly, from Dublin, led a party of men on to the roof of the General Post Office to try to extinguish a fire that had broken out there. Later, he was put in charge of evacuating the wounded from the post office to the Coliseum Theatre, and then retreated with Joseph Plunkett, Patrick Pearse and James Connolly to No 16 Moore Street.
Hopelessly surrounded, he was instructed by Plunket to offer a truce. He took a linen handkerchief from his pocket, tied it to a stick and waved it from the door of No 16. O’Reilly was the founder of the New Ireland Assurance Company and led the it for almost 50 years. He gave the handkerchief to a colleague before his death.
Crowe also said Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan should give a direction to the National Museum of Ireland to engage with the British Museum about repatriating thousands of Irish artefacts and documents held in London.
There could be as many as 8,000 items originating from Ireland at the museum, most of which are stored in boxes. Crowe said he does not want every item returned as it is important for people to see objects from other countries and cultures.
“Some of the items in the British Museum, and some of the items we have in Ireland, have been acquired unethically. Some have been pillaged and looted, some have been bought, some have been traded.
“I have a real problem with the ones that have remained in archive boxes for years, never to be seen. They’re held as a treasure trove, basically. And I think if the British Museum isn’t in a position to display them – return them to Ireland, and devolve it further by bringing them down to a local or a regional museum, where they have a chance to be seen. I don’t think history should be locked up.”
Among the items which have been held in the British museum are fragments of the Kells Cross, gold torcs and disks, Ogham-inscribed stone and bell shrines.
Crowe also said there were items in Irish museums that needed to be returned to their original countries also. An advisory committee on repatriation submitted a report to O’Donovan last week recommending evidence-based advice on repatriating items and seeing ethical resolutions to settle disputes.
The Minister has said repatriation cannot be a one-way street and that Ireland should be willing to examine what it holds, to see if it was plundered.
