Letters from Ireland’s War of Independence sold at auction - despite protests to keep them in public domain

No he didn't 'pen the letter while he was interred at Richmond Barracks'...another grave error!!

Of course the Irish government did not buy them!! Any other country's goverment would have, but not the sorry excuse for a government over there.

The silk purse of the War of Independence was made into a sows ear by the Anglo-Irish Treaty/Government of Ireland Act 1920, with not a little help from a ruthlessly ambitious unionist from south Dublin in Leinster/eastern Ireland - in cahoots with a prevaricating British liberal government of the day. A man who was rewarded for his extra-constitutional paramilitarism in protecting a dodgy union with the Attorney Generalship of England & Wales. If only they had listened more attentively to pro-Home Rule Co Antrim Presbyterian minister Rev J B Armour in 1913, none of this would have happened. (See O'Brien, Bill and J Keegan (ed). THE ALTERNATIVE ULSTER COVENANT: A Tribute to the Role of Progressive Protestantism in Irish History. Dublin (2012). Self published pamphlet). Alas, a 3/4 loaf was better than no bread, particularly with the promise of its crust.

There are Those in Ireland, who would like to see The Revolution and Civil War, as a kind of Union Agreement ? To These, The Idea`s of Irish Heritage and Nationality, are only so many Episodes of Antiques Roadshow ! Get Yours, I. Got Mine, and all that ?

As long as the content is in the public domain the only thing lost is a few bits of paper. Silly idolatry raises its head even in secular matters. This reminds me of British lottery money being used to buy the Churchill papers. - several million pounds for a pile of early twentieth century stationery.

No troll, the nationalists' position was not materially weakened when Collins negotiated the peace and they obtained much more than the british terror state was willing to give voluntarily. That said, I do not discount that the british nation mugging machine would have unleashed all of the weapons of modern warfare at their disposal, including chemical weapons (not to mention torture and rape), against non-combatants to prevent the self determination of the indigenous Irish.

Seanmór: What happened, you ask.No mystery! ~ They lost; settled for 'half a loaf' and then made a pigs ear out of it. So sad!

Hopefully, the new, private owners of these precious documents will post them on a historical site on the internet for the benefit of all .

what independence ?

Few, if any, Irish people who fought in the Anglo-Irish War would have supported permanent Partition, nor would they have approved of the South's surrendering much of it's sovereignty to the E.U. The letters those patriots wrote probably suggest that their heroic struggle was to win full independence for all of Ireland, an tír uile agus gach roinn di. Whatever happened to this noble ideal?