Heaney Sonnet on Auction in Ashford

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Heaney Sonnet on Auction in Ashford

Thursday, April 19 2007

An auction which includes important archive material donated by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, especially drafts and a holograph copy of 'Glanmore Sonnet VII', will take place at Mount Usher House, Ashford, Co. Wicklow, on Saturday, 28 April 2007.

Beginning at 4pm and with items on view from 12 noon, the auction is being organised by the Ashford Development Association Ltd. Other lots include a selection of fine art paintings and prints, photographs and signed publications from artists and writers who have links with the village of Ashford.

Monies raised will go towards transforming the former Garda Station and its quarter-acre site into an arts and heritage centre. Built in 1840, the building is one of the last remaining period properties in Ashford Village and has been given in trust by the State to Ashford Development Association Ltd.

One of the most important sales of Heaney archives in some time, it was from his home at Glanmore Cottage in Ashford that Heaney drafted the 'Glanmore Sonnets', including 'Glanmore Sonnet VII', the highlight of this sale. Other Heaney lots going under the hammer on 28 April include a signed 1979 hardback copy of Field Work in which the 'Glanmore Sonnets' first appeared. Further Heaney lots include poetry broadsides for 'A Dog Was Crying To-night in Wicklow Also' and 'Saw Music', as well as signed editions of Beowulf, Electric Light and Finders Keepers.

Other literary lots in the Ashford auction are signed publications from writers such as Peter de Rosa, Vera Pettigrew, Richard Nairn, Michael Kane and Marie Heaney.

Paintings are by Stanley Pettigrew, Barry Perry, Peter Knuttel, Susan Mary Webb, Alan Kenny and Martin Bernon. Also for auction is a watercolour portrait of Seamus and Marie Heaney by local artist, Val Moffy. A Dun Emer Print, The Strand Races: The Finish by Jack B. Yeats, published c.1906, is among the lots, as are framed natural history photographs by Barbara O'Reilly. Interest is also brisk in relation to the 1998 copy of signatories to the Belfast Agreement.

By kind permission of the Jay family, the auction gets underway at 4pm, with the gates of Mount Usher Gardens open from 12 noon for an auction preview and entertainment. Admission, to include refreshments, is €10 (senior citizens and children, €5).

Further details from Sheila Clarke, Ashford Development Association Ltd (087) 966 – 0537.

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