A collection of Michael Collin’s letters have fetched $300,000 in an auction.

The 29 letters and several notebooks had charted his life prior to the Rising had been estimated to fetch around $130,000.

One of the letters was to his sister Hannie, composed just after the Easter Rising of 1916 was sold for €16,000 $23,000.

Hundreds of historic items dating back to Ireland’s War of Independence were under the hammer at the James Adam-Mealy’s Independence auction in Dublin.

The other documents included various contemporary newspaper reports of the events leading up to the war and several medals presented for fighting in different campaigns for independence.

A separate range of First World War recruitment posters chart the efforts to enlist Irishmen overseas.

A small handgun once used by Countess Markievicz was also up for auction, along with one of her target cards which bore two holes in the bull-eye section.