O’BRIEN, R. Barry. Ed. by. The Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone 1763-1798. [Signed presentation copy from Dan Breen to his son Donal Sean Treacy Breen, dated July 3rd, 1945. Also with an earlier inscription from John Dillon to his son Theobald Wolfe Tone Dillon, dated 4 January, 1913]

Edited with an introduction by R. Barry O'Brien. Portrait frontispiece of Tone and other illustrations. Two volumes. OBRIEN, R. Barry. Dublin: Maunsel, 1910. Royal octavo. pp. (1) xxxix, 321, (2) viii, 430. Bound by Colm O Lochlainn in full dark brown crushed morocco, covers ruled in blind, flat spine with title and author in gilt on maroon morocco labels, volume number in gilt direct; cream endpapers; green and red endbands. Three Candles logo stamped on lower pastedown.  A very attractive copy with a magnificent provenance. A near fine set.

Dan Breen (1894-1969) born near Soloheadbeg County Tipperary, worked as a plasterer and later as a linesman on the Great Southern Railway. Joined the Irish volunteers in 1914, and later Quartermaster Third Tipperary Brigade. On 21 January 1919 Dan Breen and Sean Treacy together with Seán Hogan, Séumas Robinson (known as the 'big four’) and five other volunteers, helped to ignite the conflict that was to become the Irish War of Independence, this was the most significant incident since the Rising of Easter Week. With the price of £10,000 on his head, he quickly established himself as a daring Republican. Dan Breen and Sean Treacy were the closest of friends, so much so that Breen named his first son, Donal Sean Treacy Breen after him. He was a doctor in Sandwell, West Midlands and died in 2007.
Theobald Wolfe Tone Dillon (1898-1946), was the second son of John Dillon, who had been chief organizer with Michael Davitt of the movement that secured ownership of their land for the Irish farmers at the end of the twentieth century. His grandfather, John Blake Dillon, of Ballaghadereen, County Mayo, in 1842 joined Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy in founding The Nation newspaper. In 1848 he had to fly to America after taking part in Smith O'Brien's unsuccessful insurrection. On his mother's side Theo Dillon (to give him the name by which he was known to his friends) was descended from the Mathews of Thomastown, County Tipperary, his mother, Elizabeth Mathew, being a grand-niece of Father Theobald Mathew, the Irish temperance reformer. Theo was for several years Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at University College, Dublin. On the 27 March 1946 Theo Dillon died unexpectedly, at the age of forty-seven, after an operation in a Dublin nursing-home."

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