{"id":170168,"date":"2025-06-09T11:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T11:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170168\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T11:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T11:55:09","slug":"man-who-sold-extraordinarily-rare-seamus-heaney-books-has-stolen-property-charge-dismissed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170168\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who sold \u2018extraordinarily rare\u2019 Seamus Heaney books has stolen property charge dismissed \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A book dealer who claimed he bought two missing and \u201cextraordinarily rare\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/seamus-heaney\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/seamus-heaney\/\">Seamus Heaney<\/a> first editions worth \u20ac2,000 at a bric-a-brac stall has walked free from court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Alan Ladak (70), of Fahy Gardens, Loughrea, Co <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/galway\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/galway\/\">Galway<\/a>, admitted he was reckless in buying the books for about \u20ac40 each, with a view to selling them for a profit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">He pleaded not guilty at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-district-court\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-district-court\/\">Dublin District Court<\/a> to possessing stolen property last year, namely two books by the late Nobel Prize-winning poet \u2013 The Tollund Man, worth \u20ac1,250, and Shivers, valued at \u20ac750. The books previously disappeared from Kenny\u2019s Books in Galway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">They were located after Mr Ladak later went to sell them to the Temple Bar Bookshop in Dublin between May 1st and June 30th, 2024 and on October 6th, 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Granting a dismissal, Judge Adrian Harris accepted legal submissions from defence counsel Aoife Mutch, which focused on the lack of evidence presented in court, as the two books, after being returned, were re-sold before the trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">He was also found not guilty of unlawful possession of a knife on the date of his arrest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Garda Alan Cawley questioned Mr Ladak, originally from England, who brought Shivers to the Temple Bar Bookshop on October 6th and returned four days later to complete the sale.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Mr Ladak\u2019s statement recorded that he was offered \u20ac200 for Shivers on October 6th. He recalled selling The Tollund Man for \u20ac250 between May and June of last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">He maintained he bought each book for about \u20ac40 from an anonymous bric-a-brac stall in Galway city centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Mr Ladak denied knowing they were stolen, but he agreed he had been reckless and was not diligent in establishing where the books came from.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">\u201cI thought they were cheap at the time, and I hoped to make money,\u201d he said during interview, adding that he hoped to receive \u20ac200 for each.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Asked why he came to Dublin to sell them, he told the garda he had free travel, it was a day out and there were more shops there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Tom\u00e1s Kenny, of Kenny\u2019s Bookshop, recalled being contacted by Temple Bar Books about the edition of Shivers Mr Ladak brought in. He said only 125 copies were printed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">He described that edition as \u201cextraordinarily rare\u201d, having been signed to poet Gerard Fanning. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">He said publisher Peter Fallon had autographed the other book and they had previously gone missing from his bookstore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A book dealer who claimed he bought two missing and \u201cextraordinarily rare\u201d Seamus Heaney first editions worth \u20ac2,000&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,70942,21111,77,1295,70943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-170168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-district-court","10":"tag-dublin","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-galway","13":"tag-seamus-heaney","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114653280813550445","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}