There was confusion tonight over the fate of a potentially historic antique pistol reluctantly handed over to gardai during a gun amnesty.

A man gave up the small pearl-handled lady’s pistol which had been in his family for almost a century after hearing about the amnesty deadline on the news.

Joe Dowling said he was told by gardaí the heirloom, passed down from his grandmother, would be destroyed. He claimed on RTE radio he was never advised the antique could be deactivated and kept in the family.

Speculation mounted as to the historical significance of the pistol after Mr Dowling regaled a family story about his grandmother being involved in a shooting incident with the Black and Tans during the War of Independence.

“The story we had in the family was that my grandmother was defending women and children down in the cellar in Moore Street when the ‘Tans’ were coming down through the town,” he said.

“She was a native of Dublin, born off Abbey Street, so that would have been her domain around that area.”

Stuart Cole, Director at Adam’s auctioneers, who specialise in the sale of artefacts related to the Easter Rising and the Troubles of the 1920s, said it was impossible to put a financial or historical value on the weapon without proving its provenance

Posted: 11|2|06 at 9:05 am. Filed under: Auction News.