The Government has been advised by an expert on the Gore-Booth family history that the lots on auction at Lissadell today are nothing but "the trappings of decadent wealth from a vulgar and oppressive past".
In a letter to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, the Constance Markievicz Millennium Committee said all of the items of historical significance relating to the revolutionary have been previously sold in the last three years.
The letter, written by Mr Joe McGowan, chairman of the committee and a biographer of the countess, advises that most of the items relating to Countess Markievicz and her sister, poet Eva Gore-Booth, were already sold by Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth. His letter advises the Government not to intervene in the auction. The State has been asked by Lissadell's new owners, barristers Ms Constance Cassidy SC, and her husband, Mr Eddie Walsh SC, to intervene with funding or a tax scheme to help them keep the contents in the house.
The couple believe the furniture and contents are historically important and necessary to keep the house open as a tourist attraction. However, according to Mr McGowan's letter, 17 oil paintings by the countess, along with others painted by Eva and George Russell (AE) are already gone, along with the doll's house the two played with as children, an ancient harp, uniforms and other toys.
"It seems to us that the Walshes are extremely wealthy and well able to pay for their own furniture should they wish to do so, he wrote."