W. B. Yeats says: "Don't miss it!"
	Irish Studies Silent Auction March 9, 2006  Browse the Auction Catalog Online bidding is over, but feel free to continue browsing our catalog. Don't forget: the LIVE AUCTION will take place from 6 PM to 7:30 PM on Thursday, March 9, 2006, in the UNF Fine Arts Center Lobby.

A Fabulous Silent Auction & Irish Pub Party
preceding the concert of traditional Irish music by Dervish

Come early to the concert by Dervish on Thursday, March 9, 2006, for a Silent Auction Fundraiser to benefit UNF Irish Studies combined with an Irish Pub Party (from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in the UNF Fine Arts Center Lobby) prior to the concert (7:30 p.m., Fine Arts Center, Lazzara Performance Hall). The Auction and the Party are free; tickets for the concert are $29, $24 and $19 (with discounts for military, youth, students, seniors and groups).

Enjoy a taste of Irish food and beverage provided by local pubs and inspect the tables laden with an array of auction items: works of art, fine books, drinkables, eatables, gift baskets, gift certificates, jewelry, posters, objets d’art and much, much more. Auction items have been donated by ABC Fine Wine and Spirits, the Book Mark of Atlantic Beach, the Book Nook, Culhane’s Irish Pub and Restaurant of Atlantic Beach, Fionn MacCool’s of Jacksonville Beach, Hibernia Handmade of Neptune Beach, the Jenks House Bed & Breakfast of Riverside, Lynch’s Irish Pub of Jacksonville Beach, The Pampered Chef, Peterbrooke Chocolatier, Queen’s Harbour Yacht and Country Club, the Seahorse Oceanfront Inn of Neptune Beach, Spiller’s Framing & Art Gallery, the University of North Florida Bookstore, Wake Forest University Press, and many private individuals, with new items coming in every day as we go to press.

This is the most ambitious fund-raising effort ever made by UNF Irish Studies and we very much need your support. For over ten years we have been bringing you a wide variety of public events – lectures, concerts, poetry readings, film screenings, and so on – all free and open to the public. Now you can give something back and have fun in the process.

The raison d’être for the auction is a collection of some 80 fine but affordable Irish books (most of them first editions, with dust jackets, some of them signed by their authors) donated by UNF alumna Jane Britt. Minimum bids for the books range from $10-40, with most under $25.

The crown jewel of the auction is a splendid small painting by Ireland’s most celebrated living artist, Basil Blackshaw: “A Quiet Spot” (9" x 7", framed out to 13" x 11"; acrylic on board), donated by Niall and Nancy Falloon and Hibernia Handmade. Having inspected the painting, UNF’s Louise Freshman Brown declared, “It is an important piece by a major contemporary artist.” The minimum opening bid is $1500. The painting is available for inspection prior to the auction. E-mail or phone Richard Bizot – rbizot@unf.edu or 620-1272 – to arrange a time and place.

Other one-of-a-kind works in the auction include an 18" “forty-shades-of-green” necklace designed and handmade by Jamie King (designer of the UNF Irish Studies logo), woven from Czech glass seed beads and with a sterling silver spiral clasp; "Rags to Riches," a stunning batik wall hanging by Irish artist Margaret Jamison; a beautifully finished sculptural piece of turned yew wood by Irish master craftsman Glenn Lucas; framed posters signed by Irish poet Paul Muldoon and Irish story teller Eddie Lenihan; a Waterford egg and other pieces of jewelry.

And if there is absolutely nothing in the auction that you want (not even the giant canister of popcorn drizzled with Peterbrooke chocolate!), then you can support both Irish Studies and the UNF Library by being the high bidder on one of twenty specially marked Irish books in Jane Britt’s collection which the UNF Library does not own and would love to add to its collection. The Library will acknowledge your gift with a bookplate in the book you donate.

Online bidding is now closed. The highest online bid for each item will constitute the opening bid when "live" bidding begins at 6:00 p.m. on March 9. At 7:30 p.m. on March 9, all bidding will cease; the high bid at that time will be, for each item, the winning bid.

Payment (cash, personal check, credit card) and collection of auction items by winning bidders will take place during intermission and after the concert by Dervish.