Belfast: Lock of Michael Collins' hair to be auctioned

A lock of hair from the Irish republican leader Michael Collins, as well as an account of his death 100 years ago, will be auctioned in Belfast.

A number of items from the Irish War of Independence will also be auctioned.

The items include a walking stick owned by Collins, a revolver and documents from Collins' close friend Emmet Dalton.

They will be auctioned at Bloomfield Auction House in east Belfast in March.

Auctioneer Karl Bennett said he was shocked to get the phone call about a lock of Collins' hair.

"The first thing we ask, which is probably what most of the public will ask, 'is how do you know it is Michael Collins' hair, what is the provenance behind it', it's important that we're confident about the provenance that we're given, that we can stand over that and the vendors can," he said.

"But the lock of hair was given to Felix Cronin, he was married to Kitty Kiernan (a former fiancée of Collins), and it passed through the family to the current vendor.

"It's on a little card with Erin go Bragh, and we're confident that the paper and the handwriting all relates back to that period of time when Collins was killed in 1922, 100 years ago this year."

Last year, a walking stick owned by Collins was sold in Belfast for £52,000, a price five times higher than that expected by auctioneers.

One of the major figures who brought about Ireland's independence from Britain and the partition of the island into what would become Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

He led the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the War of Independence with Britain, which lasted from January 1919 until July 1921.

When a truce was called after two-and-a-half years of guerrilla warfare, Collins led a delegation to London to hold peace negotiations with the British government.

This led to the agreement of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which would create an independent Irish Free State. The treaty also confirmed the partition of Ireland.

It was hugely divisive in Ireland - when it was passed by the Irish parliament, it set the stage for the Irish Civil War.

Collins would be the commander-in-chief of the Irish National Forces during the war, but was assassinated by anti-Treaty forces in 1922.

Other items in the sale include a revolver Collins was believed to have been carrying when helping Eamon De Valera escape from Lincoln Jail in 1919.

Emmet Dalton was a winner of the Military Cross in 1916; an IRA man during the Irish War of Independence by 1919; and subsequently a Major General in the Irish Free State's National Army in 1922.