A RARE copy of the 'GPO' Proclamation salvaged from the burning post office in 1916 is to go under the hammer in Dublin.
The document - one of only 25 surviving copies (out of 1,000 printed) is being sold by Fonsie Mealy Auctioners on April 23, the eve of the centenary of the start of the Easter Rising.
It is expected to fetch somewhere between €100,000 and €150,000 which is a relatively low estimate compared to another copy of the Proclamation which sold at Sotheby's in London in December for £305,000.
The Dublin copy belongs to a private collector and is believed to have been saved by medical officer James Ryan, a final-year medical student at UCD and member of the Irish Volunteers.
As one of the last men to leave the blazing building, Ryan reportedly removed the document from the wall prior to surrender and kept it until his death in 1970.
Subsequently, it was sold by his family to a private collector for an undisclosed sum.
A native of Taghmon, Co Wexford, Ryan was born in 1891 and in 1911 won a scholarship to study medicine at UCD.
After the Rising he was arrested by British officers and sent to prison in England and Wales but on his release returned to Dublin to sit – and pass – his final medical exams in 1917.
He later became a TD for Wexford and was a founder member of Fianna Fáil, serving in two governments of two taoiseachs - Éamon de Valera and Seán Lemass.
After serving as a TD for 47 years Ryan retired in 1965 and was then elected to the Seanad, where his son, Eoin Ryan snr, was also a member.
The Co Kilkenny auctioneers tasked with the sale said Ryan had been one of the last to leave the GPO along with the injured James Connolly and one of his "final acts" in the building was to remove the Proclamation from the wall.
It will be sold in a sale of historical memorabilia by Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers on April 23 at the O'Connell Suite, Gresham Hotel, Dublin.
