Madam, - Last week's sale of the Patrick Pearse surrender document, which realised €700,000, may have been a good day for the auctioneering profession, but not for Irish museums.
The excitement and speculation around a sale of this kind has an effect on the civic and philanthropic spirit on which most museums largely depend to build and enhance their collections. The vast bulk of material held in Irish museums, especially those run as public institutions for the enlightenment and education of all citizens, comes from donations.
There has been a long tradition of civic-spirited giving in which ordinary citizens have quietly, selflessly, often anonymously, and in a spirit of real patriotism, given historically precious things to museums for the benefit of present and future generations.
There is a danger that the extraordinary generosity of such people - people who instinctively know what they can do for their country rather than what their country can do for them - may be obscured by the excitement that builds up around the sale of objects such as the Pearse surrender document.
Already museums are witnessing an increasing traffic of people seeking not to donate items, but to take up valuable curatorial time seeking valuations of items with a view to sale.
There is also an increasing tendency for owners to consider it an act of extraordinary patriotic duty merely to offer first refusal to a public institution before sending material for auction. And more cynically, of course, there are those who would seek to draw museums into a bidding war on auction items, all the better to drive the frenzy of speculation that boosts the auction price.
Museums, as institutions run solely for the public benefit, depend on a very old-fashioned sense of civic spirit and patriotism.
As we marvel at auction values that seem to spiral ever upwards, culminating in sale prices far beyond the acquisition budgets of even the most well-endowed public institutions, let us not lose sight of that valuable spirit, and the debt we owe those who choose to donate rather than sell material of enduring historic importance to public institutions. - Yours, etc,
PAT COOKE,
Chairman,
Irish Museums Association,
Holywell,
Upper Kilmacud Road,
Dublin 14.