Wicklow hospice to benefit from film memorabilia auction
Gloves, a knife and other items from the Lincoln film blockbuster are to be auctioned at the European premiere in Dublin next week.
Director Steven Spielberg donated props from the multi Oscar-nominated film to be sold for charity next Sunday.
Memorabilia including Lincoln’s handmade knife, white gloves and miniature soldiers featured in the production will go under the hammer.
Spielberg made the items available as a favour to close friend Daniel Day-Lewis, a patron of Wicklow Hospice Foundation.
Day-Lewis, nominated for an Academy award for best actor for his portrayal of US Civil War President Abraham Lincoln, has donated the only European premiere to raise funds towards building the hospice near Dublin, where he lives when not filming.
Foundation chairman Brendan Cuddihy said the charity has been overwhelmed by interest from the US.
“Props of this quality never come on the market and are closely protected by movie studios,” he said.
“Now that Lincoln is hotly tipped to scoop multi-Academy awards, we’re being told the value is even higher.”
Spielberg, Day-Lewis and a host of Irish celebrities will be attending the premiere at the Savoy cinema.
Guests will be joined on the red carpet by President Michael D Higgins. Nine hundred invitees will later attend a Burlington hotel ball.
U2’s Bono and the Edge, singers Sinead O’Connor and Shane McGowan, Chris De Burgh and boxers Katie Taylor and Barry McGuigan are on the list.
Wicklow Hospice Foundation hopes funds raised will enable the charity to begin building the hospice in June.
Currently people who live in Wicklow have to travel many miles for respite and end of life treatment.
The people of Wicklow have raised €2.4m of the €3m target to build it.
Day-Lewis became a patron in 2009 after his mother received care in a cottage hospital in England during the final months of her life.
