Durrow auction of Maureen O'Hara's jewellery and furs

A local auctioneer, Philip Sheppard is to sell luxurious fur coats and sparkling jewellery owned by Ireland's greatest international film  star, late Maureen O’Hara.

Last year, memorabilia associated with her Hollywood career, most notably the film The Quiet Man, were auctioned by Bonhams in New York. But Sheppard’s said an unnamed private collector has consigned some 250 items of O’Hara’s to them  for sale with a combined top estimate of €500,000.

They will go on public view in Sheppard’s, Durrow saleroom from Saturday, November 25 before the auction on Wednesday, November 29.

A white mink coat trimmed with Arctic fox fur by Christian Dior is expected to make between €3,000-€5,000. Philip Sheppard said the sale was already attracting worldwide interest.

Sheppard’s said the top lot among her jewellery is an 18 carat white gold ring with a round, brilliant-cut 8.30 carat diamond and baguette diamond shoulders estimated at €80,000-€120,000.

An 18 carat white gold 10 carat diamond necklace (€10,000-€15,000) comes with a silver-framed photograph of O’Hara wearing the piece.

Born Maureen FitzSimons in Ranelagh, Dublin, in 1920, Maureen O’Hara died in 2015, aged 95, in the United States. She had spent much of the previous decade at her west Cork home, Lugdine Park, near Glengarriff.

She was best known for playing the role of Mary Kate Danaher opposite John Wayne in the role of Sean Thornton in The Quiet Man (1952), a film regarded by many as a great cinema classic and by others as the epitome of stage-Irish kitsch. She appeared in more than 60 films and was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2014.