A first edition of Ulysses is among a range of rarities at Fonsie Mealy‘s rare books and collectors sale online at Castlecomer on December 9 and 10. More than 1,300 lots will come under the hammer at the two day sale. Ulysses is estimated at €7,000-€9,000. An admission ticket to the infamous Bloody Sunday football match at Croke Park on November 21, 1920 has an estimate of €2,000-€3,000 and there is an estimate of €4,000-€6,000 on a rare gold medal from the first anniversary of Bloody Sunday tournament. It is engraved with an Irish sportsman standing in front of a goalpost holding a rifle, with two hurleys, a sliotar and a football in the foreground. Among other highly collectible lots is Kevin Barry’s personal crucifix and scapular and a 1955 match programme for an Ireland v Yugoslavia game. Catholics were banned from attending this Dalymount Park match by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid due to the persecution of a catholic bishop in communist Yugoslavia. The army band did not play and the match was not broadcast on Radio Eireann.
