Going, going, gone but not forgotten

With the passing of Michael Mullen, the well-known Oldcastle auctioneer, a light has gone out on the antiques and auctioneering circuit in Ireland.

Michael died on September 20th last, aged 80. He had held his auction in Oldcastle on the first Tuesday of every month from 1962 to 2008, when he retired and the premises in Cogan Street were sold. He continued with occasional auctions elsewhere, until shortly before his death.

Michael’s auctions were more, far more, than mere business transactions. In the 1970s, with Bobby Byrne, an Oldcastle teacher, Michael had supervised comedy and variety shows; and his auctions partook of the same quality. They were dramatic social events, full of entertainment.

One evening an auction was in full swing when an unknown face appeared at the door. Michael stopped proceedings and asked the startled visitor: “Are you RC or C of I?” “Why is everyone so obsessed with religion?” Michael then continued, “RCs are Regular Customers, who buy many things, not necessarily expensive; but C of Is are Customers of Importance, who buy a few things, but very valuable ones”. The visitor looked relieved, but still totally lost.

Michael was very kind to “Regular Customers”, knocking down small lots to them quickly, for a fiver or tenner, before others bid. I often benefited in this way.

But he was nobody’s fool, in strict business terms. At one auction there were two violins, not many lot numbers apart. Both were in similar cases, the first a student’s instrument, the second a really good professional’s violin.

Across the auction room it was difficult to tell them apart. When the first was held up (the student’s instrument, according to the catalogue), Michael paused briefly then said to his attendant, “Jimmy, bring that violin over here”. The violin was brought to the podium. Michael then announced that someone had switched the two instruments, hoping to obtain the better one for the lesser price. Many might have been fooled, but not Michael Mullen.

A story, or a dramatic interlude engineered by Michael, usually increased prices. On one occasion there was a piano by the innovative German firm Lindner, Shannon-based after the second World War. Michael knew that I was interested, and the piano is indeed now in my study at my Mullingar home. But before bidding started Michael suddenly announced: "Martin is going to play a tune for us on the piano first". I am no pianist, and grudgingly played Abide with Me, not very well. But I am sure that I paid more for that piano as a result than would otherwise have been the case.

On another occasion there was a small convector heater which in ordinary circumstances might have sold for €10-€12. Michael introduced it thus: “This is just the equipment for our Irish climate. You wake up and draw the curtains, and it is a typical misty, overcast day. You plug in this heater and put it outside your front door. Then you go to the bathroom, get dressed, and have a leisurely breakfast. When you look out of the front door later, lo and behold, it’s a lovely sunny day!” The heater sold for €65.

Michael’s auctions, because of their theatrical ambience, exerted an irresistible pull. I had been in the Isle of Man, and arrived back at Dublin Port without a car on the day of a Mullen auction. A taxi Dublin-Oldcastle and another later, Oldcastle-Mullingar, made for an expensive evening. But the few hours in Michael’s company made the expense worthwhile, and were better than an evening at the theatre.

Every room in my house has something characterful in it that came from one of Michael’s auctions. Since I cannot use computers this very piece is typed – as is all my work – on an 80-year-old manual “Continental” machine that Michael gave me as a gift at his very last Oldcastle auction, in 2008.

There must be hundreds of houses throughout the Midlands – and further afield – that, like mine, have been adorned by things that came from Michael Mullen. The ancient Greeks would have said that his spirit lives on, and finds continuing expression in all these things.

To Michael's widow Frances, and their children Siobhán, Patrick, Declan, Bairbre, Vincent and Niall, as well as Michael's wider family, go out our deepest sympathies. Requiescas in pace, Michael, et lux perpetua luceat tibi.