Charles and Sarah Vivian will bring this extremely rare advertising sign to the antique fair at the Silver Springs Hotel in Cork on February 3. The sign comes complete with several bullet holes. Measuring four feet by three feet it pre-dates the advent of the telephone and may have been on the building at 33 Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin when it was attacked during the Easter Rising in 1916.
The building two doors east of 33 Bachelor’s Walk on the corner of Sackville St. was Kelly’s Fishing Tackle and Gunpowder shop. This became known at Kelly’s Fort as it was occupied by Volunteer Captain Peader Bracken and ten men who were shot and shelled at form the direction of Trinity College. Wallis’s, whose number is listed as Dublin 392 in the 1913 telephone directory, made a successful claim for damages after the Rising and received £107-4-10.