Beschreibung:

Estimate: €3,000 - €5,000
Price Realised: €5,400
Size: 9 x 7in. (22.86 x 17.78cm) Condition: Very good. Letterpress by hand, with pencil inscription on reverse: 'The following Official Document which has [been copied - erased] reached us in cipher, needs no comment, The 'precaution' taken in '98 were simplicity itself compared to this' ''The cipher ...Read more Letterpress by hand, with pencil inscription on reverse: 'The following Official Document which has [been copied - erased] reached us in cipher, needs no comment, The 'precaution' taken in '98 were simplicity itself compared to this' ''The cipher from which this document is copied does not indicate punctuation or capitals: the following precautionary measures have been sanctioned by the irish office on the recommendation of the general officer commanding the forces in Ireland ....first the following persons to be placed under arrest all members of the sinn fein national council......coisde gnota committee gaelic league.... dublin metropolitan police and royal irish constabulary will be confined to barracks under direction of .... military authority....the following premises will be occupied by adequate forces......liberty hall...six harcourt street sinn fein building.....' and lists many other buildings connected to the Volunteers or Foresters or Sinn Fein to be occupied by the military and all communications with Roman Catholic chrches, St Enda's College, and other 'suspect' premises to be monitored or cut off. An article published in An t-Óglac -The Irish Volunteer) on 8 April 1916 called for Volunteer manoeuvres on Easter Sunday 23 April 1916. On Wednesday,15 April 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood forged a notice supposedly decoded from a communication emanating from Dublin Castle. It was printed on a hand press by Joseph Plunkett and Rory O'Connor at Larkfield House, Plunkett's home off the Lower Kimmage Road. It excluded punctuation marks and capitalisation due to the poor supply of printing font available to them - this original printing claims it was an intercepted cipher to explain the lack of punctuation and capitals. Known as the 'Castle Document', apparently ordering the execution of Eoin Mac Neil, arrest of Volunteer leaders and occupation of Dublin by the British Army, it was shown to MacNeill. He was then easily persuaded to give an order to the Irish Volunteers 'to resist any British action.' This was the order that the IRB needed to go ahead with the Rising. On 19 April 1916 Alderman Tom Kelly read the ''castle order'' to a meeting of Dublin Corporation. The Nationalist weekly paper, New Ireland, edited by Patrick J. Little (1884-1963), published the text of the document as a single sheet handbill entitled ''Secret Orders issued to Military Officers'' in its issue for Saturday 22 April 1916 (vol. II no. 49), just two days before the Easter Rising began. However MacNeill discovered, sometime around 20 April that the 'Castle Document' was a fake. He put an advertisement in the Irish Independent newspaper which told all volunteers that 'No parades, marches or other movements of the Volunteers will take place.' This cancellation caused the IRB to move back the rebellion one day to Easter Monday - 24 April, 1916. Many rural Volunteers, who had come to town on Sunday only to hear the rebellion was cancelled, returned home. Although all the Rising's leaders now realised that they were doomed, they still went ahead with the plans for rebellion. There are only one or two recorded copies of this important document in public records. Very few can have survived as the printing would appear to have been small - possibly only a few were printed to persuade MacNeill and other Irish Volunteer commanders. Even the second printing - the handbill published in New Ireland, is extremely scarce. This -possibly unique - surviving first printing of the infamous 'Castle Document' is an extremely important catalyst for the Rising; if had not been concocted the rebellion might never have taken place, and if Eoin MacNeill h