Collins letter fetches euro 26,500

A letter written by Michael Collins has been sold in Dublin to a private collector for €26,565. The letter documents Collins' opposition to partition and was sold by the James Adam auction rooms. Mr Peter Sheehan, sale organiser, said the underbidder was the National Library who "bidded like billy-o" until bowing out at €21,000.

"It is by far the highest price for a Michael Collins document and shows just how important the letter is," said Mr Sheehan. The three-page typed letter contained Collins' deepest feelings about a united Ireland.

It is dated February 7th, 1922, and is on Irish Provisional Government headed paper. The letter is addressed to Mr Louis Walsh, of Draperstown, Co Derry. It was written in the final days of the Border negotiations. Collins wrote the letter after the second of two meetings with Churchill in London.

The letter has never been on the market as it was owned by a private collector in Northern Ireland.

Mr Sheehan said it had been passed on from the original owner but never sold publicly. It is quite worn and was repaired at one stage.

Collins opened the letter by expressing a lack of concern at the "recent difference with \ Craig" over the Border negotiations.

"I am quite certain that his stand is now looked upon as being the unreasonable one and not ours," Collins wrote.

"All the British statesmen are agreed that it was most disastrous on Craig's part to talk about agreeing to nothing less than the six-county area."

Collins outlined tactics he intended to pursue, in particular with regard to destabilising the Northern Ireland parliament. He also threatened to escalate the economic war from a semi-official boycott into one based on swingeing official tariffs against Northern Ireland.