THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE MEDALS AWARDED TO GERALDINE PLUNKETT DILLON, DAUGHTER OF COUNT PLUNKETT AND SISTER OF JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT, THE EXECUTED 1916 LEADER, AND OF GEORGE AND JOHN (JACK)...

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE MEDALS AWARDED TO GERALDINE PLUNKETT DILLON, DAUGHTER OF COUNT PLUNKETT AND SISTER OF JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT, THE EXECUTED 1916 LEADER, AND OF GEORGE AND JOHN (JACK) PLUNKETT, WHO ALSO FOUGHT IN THE G.P.O. IN 1916. Comprising The Service Medal 1917-21 (reverse engraved: Geraldine Plunkett Dillon, Cumann na mBan) and the Truce Commemorative Medal 1921-1971 (reverse engraved: Geraldine Plunkett Dillon, C. na mB). The medals contained in the original green card box of issue for her 1917-21 Service Medal, this inscribed in ink on the base ''Geraldine Plunkett Dillon's medals 1916 (sic) and Black & Tan''. Born in 1891 and christened Geraldine Mary Germaine Plunkett, but known throughout her life as Gerry, Geraldine Dillon was brought up at a succession of Dublin townhouses owned by the Plunkett family in Upper Fitzwilliam St., Marlborough Road and Belgrave Road. By 1914 Geraldine's brother Joseph was already involved with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers, and Geraldine actively supported him. In February 1914 she took delivery of two bags containing gelignite and ammunition that had been smuggled into Dublin by Liam Mellowes. Geraldine Plunkett first came into contact with Michael Collins when her mother, Countess Plunkett, went to the USA in 1915, and Geraldine found herself managing the family property and trying to sort out a financial mess. At her instigation her brother, Joseph Mary, requested an Irish Volunteer to help her, and the man who was sent to work with her from November 1915 was Michael Collins. By 1916 Geraldine was living with her brother Joseph Mary at Larkfield in Kimmage , a suburban property with extensive grounds that was used as a training camp for the Irish Volunteers. By the eve of the 1916 Rising it was home to a large number of overseas Volunteers, mainly Cockney, Glasgow and Liverpool men, the ''Liverpool Lambs'', who camped out in the premises and used the barn as a firing range for the .303 rifles that had been landed at Howth (on the morning of the 1916 Rising, Easter Monday, 59 of these Volunteers left Larkfield for the G.P.O., boarding a tram in Harolds Cross, the officer in charge, George Plunkett, asking for 59 tupenny fares and ordering the conductor not to stop until he reached O'Connell Street). Subsequently her brother Joe gave her an automatic pistol, which she, at his urging, wore continuously under her jacket. Geraldine Plunkett did not play an active part in the 1916 Rising. Instead, on Easter Sunday 1916 she married Thomas Dillon (1884-1971) in Rathmines Church. Two of her brothers, George and Jack, were there in their Volunteer uniforms, and Rory O'Connor, not in uniform, was the best man. Her husband, Thomas Dillon (1884-1971), a member of the Irish Volunteers and active politically and militarily, spent much of the period 1916-22 in jail or in hiding. He had originally intended taking part in the 1916 Rising, and actually received his mobilisation orders from Michael Collins on the Saturday before his wedding. However, when he went to visit his future brother in law Joseph Mary Plunkett that evening to receive his final orders, he was told to go to the Imperial Hotel in O'Connell St the following day with Geraldine, after the wedding, and await further orders. The plan being that, as and when some Dublin chemical factories were captured, he was to take charge and set about making explosives and munitions for the rebels. Originally the wedding day, planned months in advance, was to have been the occasion for a double wedding, her brother Joseph Mary Plunkett having arranged to marry Grace Gifford on the same day. However, when the wedding day arrived, her brother Joe was not present, being otherwise engaged with the other leaders, trying to contain the last-minute disasters which threatened the Rising. Geraldine and her new husband spent their wedding afternoon and night in the Imperial Hotel, which was over Clery's Department Store, immediately opposite Dublin's General Post Office. That Sunday afternoon Rory O'Connor visited them to confirm Eoin MacNeill's countermanding order, but added that everything was still up in the air and that although the rising was off for that day, they should keep their eyes open from 12 o'clock onwards the following day. Geraldine and Tommy had ringside seats on Easter Monday, and viewed the proceedings from the open windows of the sitting room of their hotel. At mid-day they witnessed the arrival of the 100 uniformed Volunteers, who marched up O'Connell Street and occupied the G.P.O., and Geraldine's brother Joseph Mary Plunkett entering the G.P.O. alongside Michael Collins. She also saw Pearse coming out of the G.P.O. with her brother Joe to read the Proclamation of the Republic. While this was going on, Rory O'Connor crossed over from the G.P.O. to update Geraldine and Tommy, with news that Jacobs factory, the Four Courts, the South Dublin Union, Boland's Mills and various other positions around Dublin had also been occupied, and that the Citizen Army was in Stephen's Green. At this point she asked O'Connor to obtain permission for her to enter the G.P.O., but was refused permission to enter by Joe, on the grounds that the G.P.O. was already crowded to capacity. Instead she was ordered back to Larkfield with her husband, to commence manufacturing explosives. The last time she saw her brother Joseph Mary Plunkett was that afternoon, when he came out of the G.P.O. to blow up an abandoned tram for use as a barricade. That evening, as the light faded, Geraldine and Tommy cycled out of Dublin through the encircling lines of soldiers. Geraldine Plunkett Dillon published a posthumous volume of her brother's poetry in June 1916, one month after his execution. After the Rising Darrell Figgis came up to Dublin from Achill and gave Geraldine a Mauser pistol to keep for him. It was, she said ''a lovely gun'', and ''much too good for him, so I gave it to Mick Collins when he came home from internment at Christmas''. A year after the failed Rising, on April 19th 1917 her husband Tommy, along with Rory O'Connor, organised the meeting at the Mansion House in Dublin, attended by over 1,200 delegates, at which Count Plunkett announced the setting up of the abstentionist Liberty Clubs. Tommy was a member of the Sinn Fein executive that acted as Dail Eireann until the 1918 election. Geraldine was at the first meeting of Dail Eireann on 21st January 1919 in the Mansion House, Dublin, at which her father, Count Plunkett, gave the opening address. Tommy Dillon was interned in Gloucester prison from May 1918 to January 1919 and on his release he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at University College, Galway. Geraldine moved to Galway with her husband in 1919, where their house was regularly used for sessions of the Sinn Fein Courts. During the War of Independence Tommy was active in the I.R.A. in Galway, and organised the raid on the Galway Court House that resulted in the seizure of the County Council's record books in February 1921. He was a successful Sinn Fein candidate for Galway city during the 1921 general election. Whilst in Galway, Geraldine joined Cumann na mBan and also acted as an intelligence agent for Michael Collins, who communicated with her by secret messenger, Geraldine being tasked with organising and transmitting intelligence reports from the commanders of the various I.R.A. brigades in Connemara. Not surprisingly, Geraldine and Tommy's activities came to the attention of the crown forces, military, Black and Tans, Auxiliaries and R.I.C. They were repeatedly harassed, and at one stage there was a threat that their house would be bombed, whereupon they fled their home with their three children, Geraldine and the three children seeking refuge in a friend's house, whilst Tommy hid in a cave in the nearby hills with other members of the I.R.A. On Easter Monday, 28th March 1921, Geraldine Dillon was arrested and imprisoned in Galway jail for three months, having been caught carrying a dispatch containing details of police beatings that were being meted out to republican prisoners in a Galway police barracks. Geraldine Plunkett Dillon died in 1986 at the age of 94, and is buried in Glasnevin cemetery alongside many of her relatives. Lot accompanied by a photograph of Geraldine Plunkett Dillon wearing her medals at Arbor Hill, circa 1980, and by a copy of her autobiography, ''All in the Blood,'' which was edited and published posthumously by her granddaughter, Honor O Brolchain (A & A Farmer Ltd, Dublin, 2006), a wonderfully detailed no-holds-barred account of her life and times, and of her family, in the cataloguers opinion one of the most interesting books to emerge from that period, and one that no student of the Irish Revolution should be without. The cataloguer is indebted to Honor O Brolchan, for her advice, and for having granted the cataloguer permission to refer to and quote from ''All In The Blood''. The inscription on the card box that accompanies these medals is incorrect in describing one of them as a ''1916'' medal, a mistake frequently made by those not familiar with the medals of the period, the 1917-21 Service Medal often being referred to as a ''1916 Medal''. Although Geraldine Plunkett Dillon was present in O'Connell Street during the 1916 Rising, having been instructed to go there by her brother Joe as Director of Operations of the Volunteers, she did not bear arms or serve in any of the rebel garrisons, and as a result was not entitled to the 1916 Medal, the two medals in this lot representing her total medal entitlement for services during the period 1916-21. Lot accompanied by a photograph of Geraldine Plunkett wearing her medals

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