DILLON, John (1851–1927). Autograph Signature with Portrait Photograph. Dublin, 26 October 1914.

Original autograph signature of John Dillon, dated and located in his hand, “Dublin, 26 October 1914”, attractively mounted beneath a portrait photograph and housed in a decorative frame, 340 x 290mm. The autograph dates from one of the most critical periods in modern Irish history, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War and during the Irish Parliamentary Party’s campaign in support of the war effort.

John Dillon was one of the most significant figures in Irish constitutional nationalism. A close associate of Charles Stewart Parnell, he succeeded to the leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party after the death of John Redmond in 1918. Throughout his career Dillon championed Home Rule, land reform and tenant rights, serving as one of the principal parliamentary voices of Irish nationalism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although eclipsed in popular memory by the revolutionary generation that followed, Dillon was among the last major leaders of the constitutional nationalist tradition which had dominated Irish politics before 1916.

An attractive historical display piece combining a contemporary autograph with a portrait of the statesman, dating from the final years before the Easter Rising transformed the course of Irish political history.

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