Artist’s view of Shannon flooding

A rare 19th century book containing images of flooding on the river Shannon was among the highlights in the Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers sale in the Clyde Court Hotel in Dublin last Tuesday where 86 per cent of lots sold.

Shannon Floods, published in 1880 by Henry Trench, with lithographic views (prints) of watercolours by an unknown Victorian artist, sold for €700, within its estimate (€550-€750).

The top lot was a signed first edition, published in 1854, of An Investigation into the Laws of Thought by George Boole estimated at €5,000-€7,000 which sold for €11,000. The buyer was, rather appropriately, University College Cork where Boole was the first professor of mathematics.

A collection of letters, mostly to his mother, written by Tipperary-born Brendan Bracken before he became a household name in Britain as Churchill's minister for information during the second World War, estimated at €1,750-€2,500, sold for €4,600 to the Little Museum of Dublin.

An archive of documents relating to Sir Arthur Vicars, an English official at Dublin Castle who was fired after the theft of the Irish crown jewels in 1908 and who was later murdered at his home in Co Kerry by the IRA during the War of Independence, sold for €3,500, way above the estimate (€700-€1,200).

Stained-glass window

Of bloodstock interest, a poster advertising a sale by Tattersalls in November 1832 of the stud of the late Sir Nicholas Loftus at Mount Loftus, Goresbridge, Co Kilkenny made €1,300 (€500-€700).

An early 19th century medical book, Pathological Anatomy by Robert Carswell, first published in London in 1838 and illustrated with colour plates of "the elementary forms of disease", sold for €5,800 (€2,000-€3,000).

Finally, and appropriately for the time of year, a watercolour design for a stained-glass window, entitled The Nativity by Richard King, the Mayo-born artist who worked in the Harry Clarke Studios and who died in 1974, made €2,100 (€1,500-€2,000).