1916 PROCLAMATION: THE VERY RARE HANDBILL ISSUE 'POBLACHT NA H EIREANN. The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the People of Ireland. Irishmen and Irishwomen ..' Handbill, page...

1916 PROCLAMATION: THE VERY RARE HANDBILL ISSUE 'POBLACHT NA H EIREANN. The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the People of Ireland. Irishmen and Irishwomen ..' Handbill, page size 8 5/8 x 5 ? ins [22 x 14 cms], printed surface 7 ? x 4 5/8 ins [19.7 x 11.6 cms], on similar paper and in closely similar typographical style to the previous item, reproducing the full text of the Proclamation without the original type-anomalies. No printer, no date, same provenance as previous item. Only two other copies of this handbill are recorded. One is in the British National Archives at Kew, among the papers of William Wylie, prosecuting barrister at the court martial proceedings against the leaders of the Rising. The other known copy is in the National Library of Ireland, in the Joseph Holloway collection, marked by Holloway '1916'. We have not seen any other copy in some 20 years of handling such material. It is not mentioned in Bouch's booklet, which deals only with the broadsheet issue. In view of its typography and the provenance of the three known copies, it is very likely that the handbill was printed by Joseph Stanley during Easter Week, on the same presses as the Second and Third Bulletins (see Tom Reilly's biography of Stanley). It is thus the second issue of the Proclamation. It makes sense that the rebels would have wished to issue a more portable version of the text than the 30-inch original, which is not reproduced in 'Irish War News'. It might have been issued later that year, but in that case there would be no reason for Wylie to have a copy; and besides Joseph Stanley was imprisoned from early May to Christmas Eve 1916. If issued in peacetime conditions, one would expect that plenty of copies would survive, which is not the case; whereas by the middle of Easter Week, central Dublin was a theatre of artillery, gun-battles and uncontrolled fires, and a document such as this could easily vanish almost without trace - as apparently it did. A true rarity, and an important addition to the bibliography of 1916. Provenance: From the collection of the Connolly family, probably handled by James Connolly himself.

View more View less