IN what is traditionally a quiet start to the year, Den is Drum of Malahide opened proceedings with an auction the highest price of which was £1,850, paid for a D-end Victorian dining table. However Dublin Corporation livened things up by paying £2,700 for a Dublin freedom box at an O'Reilly auction, and Woodwards of Cork opened their year with some excellent prices for Cork silver, most notably the £3,400 for 11 Cork bar chairs.

The first of the year's major auctions was the Hamilton Osborne King dispersal sale at Ballycarberry, the former home of the late and great Dublin hotelier, Toddy O'Sullivan, which totalled some £230,000. Best price of the day was £9,500 paid for a pair of Hicks side tables.

The early part of the year also saw a pre Budget submission by the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute to raise, the price reporting level of antique sales- this was later to be successful, with the Minister for Finance raising the figure to a much welcomed £15,000, a level which many felt would reduce the exodus of Irish antiques to sales outside the country.

By February, most of the auction houses were in full swing, with Thomas Adams of Blackrock reporting a top price of £1,850 for a Strahan rosewood table, Mullen's of Laurel, Park achieving £1,650 for a pair of overmantel mirrors and James Adam £4,000 for 11 George III railback hall chairs.

However, it was Lynes & Lynes of Cork which raised eye brows when they sold Sir John Lavery's picture of the funeral Mass for Michael Collins for £120,000. Sheppard of Durrow finished off the month with a price of £13,000 for 16 Irish Sheraton period hall chairs.

March was both a busy and a record month. The record was set by the Overend sale through HOK at Airfield in Dundrum, where buyers paid £1.3 million in one day. However, there were other successes, with Christie's of London achieving £6,000 for an Irish silver soup tureen by John Letablere and Town & Country selling a pair of 20th century inlaid display cabinets for £4,900.

Taylor de Veres opened their art year with a sale which saw a collection of works by Colin Middleton all sell well. William Scott's Breton landscape fetched £9,000.

This was eclipsed in spectacular fashion by the James Adam sale of Irish art, which totalled £360,000. There was a record auction price of £32,000 for J.M. Kavanagh's Cockle Pickers, while other good prices were £67,000 for a George Barrel landscape of the Dargle valley and £56,000, £36,000 and £29,000 for three works by Yeats.

The lively pace of late winter was picked up in April with a £350,000 sale, by Mealy's at the Old Vicarage in Swords, Co Dublin, where the highest price was £28,000 for a gilt japanned cabinet. A Carlton House desk fetched £9,000. Thomas Adams achieved £3,500 for a chinoiserie lacquer cabinet and Sheppard attracted £6,000 for a 19th century cylinder desk.

However, it was left to Mullen's of Laurel Park and Mealy's to end the month on a pleasing note. Mullen's brought in £240,000 at their auction, with a top price of £12,500 for a Georgian mahogany breakfront bookcase (one of 25 lots which topped £2,500), while Mealy's closed another chapter in the history of one of Ireland's finest country houses, Abbey Leix, with a sale at which carpets for once dominated. A huge Ziegler specimen sold for £33,000 while a local Abbeyleix carpet made £13,000.

May was a quiet enough month, enlivened by a Thomas Adams of Blackrock sale at which works by Maurice Wilks did best. The Auction Rooms in Limerick also did well when John Dunphy achieved, a price of £2,400 for eight dining chairs. But it was left to Woodwards of Cork to crown the month with, a fine sale of silver, the top price of £4,000 going to a Cork coffee pot by John Nicholson. The first half of the year was completed with a trumpeting flourish. Sothebys's Irish sale (held ironically enough in London) was an outstanding, success, the broad details of which have already been dealt with on this page. But elsewhere there were some solid prices, with John Ross of Belfast getting £3,500 for a breakfront bookcase, Mullens of Laurel Park realising £6,200 for a Georgian breakfront bookcase, James Adam fetching £5,400 for a Haywood Hardy equestrian scene at the dispersal sale of items from Egan's Lake Hotel in Oughterard Co Galway, and Denis Drum of Malahide achieving £8,500 for two vitrine cabinets at a sale in Maddenstown House on the Curragh.

Christies's Irish sale of pictures, with most of the big names well represented, also went quite well, as did, Whyte's of Dublin, whose auction of stamps and banknotes totalled £100,000.

The other highlights were the purchase of letters between Michael, Collins and his friend Kitty Kiernan and two sales by HOK. Cork politician Peter Barry paid £43,000 for the Collins letters at a Taylor de Veres sale, a price which slightly obscured an excellent performance elsewhere in the sale £28,000 for a picture by Henry, £21,000 for a Yeat's work, £29,000 for a Roderic O'Conor and £23,000 for a Patrick Swift work (a record?)

HOK's two sales were at Rosheen in Dublin, where a major collection of Hicks furniture was a centrepiece - of the top 25 items, 18 were by Hicks and they all went at prices from £900 to £14,000. At their second sale, at Cherryfield, also in Dublin, HOK achieved £18,000 for a bureau plat and £10,000 for a Berlin vase.

Midsummer is usually a quiet enough time but there was plenty of activity. Town & Country sold a Georgian economy dining table for £4,800, Thomas Adams fetched £2,700, for a Victorian credenza, Whyte's had a good sale and Phillips sold an Irish silver tankard for £9,200.

It was disappointing to see the with of Samuel Beckett's original manuscript for his play Endgame, at £80,000 at a Sotheby's auction in Limerick, but HOK once more produced a seven figure auction out of their hat at Ardenode, deep in the stud territory of Kildare. The top price here was £37,000 for a Jan Both painting.

A success was a collection of drawings by George Chinnery, which sold for £33,500 at the same sale. Furniture sold well, with a side cabinet fetching £28,000, a pair of girandoles £16,000 and an Irish table £17,000.

September saw a return to the lively times of the spring, with the Auction Rooms in Limerick achieving £4,000 for a serpentine chest. James Adam fetched £12,000 for a part dinner service (Dr Wall Worcester Jabberwocky pattern) and a revitalised Irish Antique Dealers Fair made a success out of moving from the Mansion House to a bigger venue.

Bunratty antique dealer Mike McGlynn changed his retirement plans and was welcomed back into the fold but the big sales of the month were held at James Adam, where Irish art struggled a little, to produce a price of £65,000 for a Paul Henry work, £12,000 for a Gerard Dillon and £11,000 for a le Brocquy. Yeats's big but some how uninspiring Thraw Bawn failed to sell.

Mealy's had an excellent sale at a country house, Ballynaparka, with a top price of £38,000 for a Regency circular library table, £30,000 for a pair of Neapolitan - views by Salvatore Candido and astonishing prices of £18,000 and £16,000 respectively for two sets of six cast iron garden urns.

October was one of the busiest months for some time. John Ross had a double sided success, firstly selling off the effects of the late Northern artist Anne Primrose Jury, later achieving the unique feat of selling all 380 of her works at a studio sale and finishing off with a good sale of Irish art.

Town & Country got £3,300 for Victorian, bookcase, Herman & Wilkinson just over £2,000 for a Victorian D end dining table, Lynes & Lynes £4,000 for a Killarney wood table and Mullen of Oldcastle £6,400 for a dining table at a dispersal sale in Maynooth.

Mealy's, were once again in the news with a fine sale at Summerhill, a country house in Tipperary, where a pair of Rochard pastels topped the list. Mullen of Laurel Park had a £200,000 auction, where the top price of £10,000 went to a pair of Georgian mahogany, bookcases. Taylor de Veres realised £9,200 for a Gerard Dillon painting and £8,000 for a work by Hone: Adams of Blackrock achieved £17,500 for a Maurice MacGonigal and £12,000 for a Paul Henry.

November was if anything busier than October. James Adam achieved £6,000 for a Victorian cut glass chandelier, and the Lawlor Briscoe re location sale saw a top price of £4,500 for a 19th century mahogany dining table. Taylor de Veres changed their name to de Veres Art Auctions and their first sale before Christmas achieved prices of £4,400 and £4,200 for works by Gerard Dillon.

Christie's of London got some good prices for Irish art - £95,000 for a Yeats, £70,000 and £30,000 for two Laverys and what is thought to be a record auction price of £24,000 for a work by Sir Gerald Festus Kelly.

Mealy's had a busy month, with two big £400,000 sales, the first at their Castlecomer salerooms, where a Steinway grand piano topped the list at £7,500, as did a walnut credenza at the same price. Later, at Abington Rectory near Murroe in Limerick, a William Moore attributed side table made £37,000, an Orpen portrait fetched £15,000 and a Georgian style neo Classical display cabinet sold for £15,500.

Hamilton Osborne King got their oar in with an excellent sale at Myrtlehill in Cork, where a John Hogan sculpture made £12,500. Sheppard of Durrow had an auction where the two top lots both fetched £11,000 - a Victorian mahogany bookcase and a pair of Victorian credenzae. James Adam ended the month with £12,500 for a huge marquess cabinet.

The two final art sales of the year saw quiet times both for James Adam and de Veres, with the former achieving, prices of £18,000 for an Aloysius O Kelly painting, £10,000 for a work by Henry, £8,500 for a Patrick Leon ard (a possible auction record) and, for a fin Patrick Collins while highlights for de Vere's were £8,000 for a Swift, £7,200 for a MacGonigal and £7,000 for an Osborne.

Mullen's of Laurel Park finished an excellent year for them - their best yet with a £150,000 sale, where the top price of £6,500 went to a pair of Georgian card tables.