A surrender letter written by Patrick Pearse in Easter Week 1916 should be withdrawn from auction, a leading historian has said.

Diarmaid Ferriter, professor of modern Irish history at University College Dublin, said the letter, which is due to go under the hammer tomorrow, “emphatically does not belong in an auction room, which really debases the Pearse note and our heritage in this centenary year”.

Written by Pearse in his prison cell on April 30th, 1916 shortly after he had surrendered to Brigadier General William Lowe as a surrender instruction to the Four Courts garrison, the letter will be auctioned in Dublin with a guide of between €1 million and €1.5 million.

Adam’s Auctioneers, which has encouraged the Government to buy the letter for the State’s archives, has described the handwritten single-page letter as “the most significant Irish document to be offered for sale”.

In a letter to The Irish Times last week, the Capuchin Franciscan Order said the letter “was alienated by persons unknown from the archives of the Order without the authorisation of its superiors”. That claim was immediately dismissed by Adam’s, which said it was “completely erroneous” and that the letter’s provenance had been thoroughly established when it was last sold in 2005.

In a joint statement yesterday, Adam’s and the Capuchin Order said the “main point” of the letter to The Irish Times from Fr Adrian Curran OFM, who is the provincial minister for the order in Ireland, was “to support the view that the Pearse surrender note, if at all possible, should be preserved in Ireland for the Irish people”. The statement said the Capuchin Order did not benefit from the sale of the document at any time.

“Following a meeting with the auctioneer, the provincial minister is satisfied that he is in full possession of the facts surrounding the provenance of this letter and considers the matter closed,” the statement said.

Held in care

In his letter to The Irish Times, Fr Curran wrote that the document was once in the possession of Fr Columbus Murphy OFM, who received it from Pearse three days before his execution for delivery to the commander of the Four Courts garrison so as to facilitate his surrender and that of the men under his command. Fr Curran said it was held in care as part of the Order’s heritage in connection with the 1916 Rising.

“The Capuchin Order regrets to state that this document was later alienated by persons unknown from the archives of the order without the authorisation of its superiors and put up for sale,” Fr Curran wrote.

According to Adam’s, the Pearse letter passed from Br Columbus OFM to Br Conrad OFM who, as head of the Capuchin Order in Ireland, “gifted it to the father of the vendor in the 1960s. It was then inherited in the 1980s and thereafter it was sold by auction in 2005, only after efforts to sell it to the State failed,” the auctioneer stated.

Patriotism

Commenting on the letter, Prof Ferriter said in his opinion it belonged to the Capuchins and should be withdrawn from auction. “When a Capuchin joins the order they commit that any material generated as a result of their work is the property of the Capuchins. This letter clearly falls in to that category,” he said.

“What right did Br Conrad have to gift it the father of the vendor? It was, we are told, ‘inherited in the 1980s’ and then sold. Inherited by whom? And why was it sold? And what of the appropriateness and morality of that, not to mention what it says about patriotism? We are entitled to answers to those questions.”

Adam’s stresses that the Pearse letter passed from Br Columbus OFM to Br Conrad OFM, who gifted it to the father of the vendor in the 1960s. It was then inherited in the 1980s and thereafter it was sold by auction in 2005.

Prof Ferriter said there was a need for “much more probing” of the way in which documents of this importance became privatised and sold for investment and profit.

In a statement issued on its behalf yesterday by the public relations firm Paul Allen Associates, Adam’s accused The Irish Times of seeking to “utterly misrepresent the true facts” of how the Pearse letter came to auction. It stated that the paper chose to “explicitly misrepresent” the correspondence from Fr Curran and to “sensationalise a non-story”.

In that statement, Adam’s said the provenance of the letter was clearly stated in the auction catalogue. Since 1887, the auctioneer had “always conducted a full forensic review of all historically significant items to ensure traceabillity and bona fides as to the rightful ownership of all materials”, it added.

Letter from Capuchin Franciscan Order

A chara, In reference to various newspaper articles published recently about the impending public auction by James Adams and Sons, auctioneers of the Pearse Surrender Letter, we the Capuchin Friars of Ireland make the following statement.

The letter in question is a handwritten document by Patrick Pearse and described by the said auctioneers as “the most significant Irish document to be offered for sale”. This document, once in possession [of] Fr Columbus Murphy OFM Cap, who received it from Patrick Pearse three days before his execution for delivery to the commandant of the Four Courts garrison so as to facilitate his surrender and the men under his command, was held in care as part of the order’s heritage in connection with the 1916 Rising.

The Capuchin Order regrets to state that this document was later alienated by persons unknown from the archives of the order without the authorization of its superiors and put up for sale. It was sold in 2005 by the said auctioneers on behalf of a person or persons unknown for €700,000.

We wish to state that we [the Capuchin Order] did not sell nor benefit in any way from the sale of this document. We are aware that it is now to be resold with an estimated value of €1.5 million. The Irish Capuchins regard this document as a precious monument of the history of the Irish people and worthy to be preserved as such for future generations.

Is mise, Fr Adrian Curran OFM Capuchin Provincial Minister