€2,800
MICHAEL COLLINS (1890 - 1922)
An autograph letter on Gresham Hotel headed paper (2 January 1922).
A letter from Michael Collins, presumably to his haberdasher, reads: “Please will you give bearer 6 collars (soft 16 ½) – usual kind. Mí?eál Ó Coileáin 2/1/1922.” He needed new collars in preparation for his new role as statesman. Five days later, on 7 January, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was formally ratified by Dáil Éireann by a slim majority of 64 to 57. There’s a photograph of Collins, taken at the Gresham on that day, in the National Library of Ireland. He looks relaxed and confident with his hands in his pockets and is wearing a shirt and tie. The collar is most likely one of those ordered in this letter. On 16 January, the Provisional Government of Ireland took up office and Collins was appointed as its chairman. The letter, and the events that surrounded it, represent a moment of political assurance and optimism that would be short lived. Neither Collins nor the Gresham Hotel survived the year. The Gresham, which occupied three Georgian houses on the east side of Upper Sackville Street, now O’Connell Street, in Dublin was destroyed in early July, during the fighting that heralded the start of the Civil War. On 22 August 1922, Michael Collins was shot and killed in ambush by anti-Treaty forces at Béal na Bláth in County Cork.
17 cm. high; 12 cm. wide;
Approximate Time: 14:12
Lot Number: 268
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