An ancient Mexican statue possibly dating to the 3rd century BC is one of the more unusual lots at Aidan Foley’s sale in aid of the RNLI in Kinsale on September 16. The 76 cms tall figure is accompanied by an authentication report from CIRAM, the French radio carbon dating laboratory, and is estimated at 10,000-15,000.
The cause is exceptional so this sale has attracted a variety of quality lots ranging from the Lipton Challenge Cup presented to Cove Sailing Club, Cork Harbour in 1921 by Sir Thomas Lipton to a tanzanite and diamond ring donated by Loretta Brennan Glucksman. The wide variety on offer includes contents from the former Lovetts Restaurant in Cork, Irish and English silver, art, furniture and jewellery.
Ancient Mexican statue UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
The Lipton Cup
The Enemy Within – The Spanish Flu in Ireland 1918-19, a new exhibition on the Spanish Flu that swept across Ireland 100 years ago, opens tomorrow at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life in Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo. The Spanish Flu claimed 23,000 lives and infected some 800,000 people in Ireland over a 12-month period from 1918 to 1919. No group, location or aspect of life was spared. However, the epidemic remains an almost forgotten event in 20th-century Irish history.
In June 1919 the British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara in a modified First World War bomber which they crash landed in a field. Local man Jim Fawl removed a souvenir from the crash site, a wooden rib, probably part of an aileron. The piece of aviation history came to light almost one hundred years later on RTE’s National Treasures programme and has been on exhibition in the Museum of Country Life, Castlebar since then.
