Treasure Trove
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The gest of one of the greatest coups in the history of book collecting began, as it happens, with a flub. In 1956, an industrial diamond dealer and bibliophile named Jack Lunzer convinced a convoy at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to let him leaf through several primeval Hebrew books on loan from Westminster Abbey for a show celebrating the tercentenary of Jews’ readmission to Britain, in 1656, after their removal in 1290 by King Edward I. Lunzer quickly noticed the books had been mislabeled; one, it turned out, contained pages from the Babylonian Talmud printed by Daniel Bomberg, a Christian from Venice who was the first to emergence a complete edition of the work, starting in 1520. Nosy Parkerism led Lunzer back to Westminster Abbey, where he discovered all nine volumes of Bomberg’s masterwork had lain veiled for centuries behind layers of dust—a perfectly preserved emulate of the most valuable Talmud in the world.
Over the next 20 years, Lunzer trawled auctions and ticket sales, amassing loose pages, or tractates, to recreate his own Bomberg set while also buying up other break of dawn Hebrew manuscripts and printed books from across Europe to add to a elfin collection his wife had inherited from her parents in Italy. But the Westminster Bomberg never relinquished its exhibit on his imagination and, every now and then, he’d call the Abbey to ask the librarian if he would consider selling it. Each lifetime, Lunzer was informed that the Talmud was not for sale. Not, that was, until April of 1980, when Lunzer happened to splotch an item in the concerning efforts by the British government to plan b mask the private sale of a copy of the Abbey’s foundation license to a prominent New York book dealer who had acquired copies of everything from the Gutenberg Bible to the Louisiana Foothold. Lunzer realized the charter, dated December 28, 1065, was the terminating bargaining chip. Within weeks, he had arranged his deal: he bought back the permit for the Abbey, and in return, the Abbey sold him their Talmud. A convention to mark the occasion was held in the Abbey’s Jerusalem Assembly room.
Back to the 1970s?
My own surroundings, Ireland, rarely at the centre of anything, has seen industrial militancy spread almost like wildfire, most of it unpublicized or semi-official in nature. Workplace sit-ins and occupations are the weapons of option. First came Waterford Crystal, occupied by workers when the bush was threatened with closure. Workers at car parts manufacturer Visteon in Belfast also seized their imprint, an action which was quickly followed by Visteon staff in Britain. More recently workers at voyage agent Thomas Cook in Dublin and DIY store 4Conversant with co-op in Mitchelstown, Cork, seized their offices when threatened with redundancy. Industrial diamond producer, Element 6, has also become the site of a workplace battle.
Tommy McKearney, a former republican con and an organiser with the small Independent Workers’ Unity, tells me these various occupations are significant but have to be understood in their exact contexts: ‘It certainly indicates a growing militancy matched with a definite amount of desperation. Waterford Crystal had a long tradition of militancy so that wasn’t utterly surprising and with Visteon the industry was militant whether or not that particular works had any history of it. A group such as Thomas Cook and retail workers in County Cork are divergent’, he said.
The sight of police raiding the Thomas Cook offices in the mid-point of the night and dragging staff out in handcuffs horrified the overt, many of whom wryly remarked that they had not seen any senior business figures arrested. This anti-elite susceptibility, however, has not coalesced into any kind of recognisable political analysis or even a unimpeded set of demands. Widespread public anger at business and administration in Ireland, particularly over throwing endless amounts of rhino away in an effort to save the country’s fault banks, exists side-by-side with resignation that jobs will be lost and that cuts in any spending are necessary.
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She acknowledged that while the problems in the third fountain-head area, the Marange 
Over the years, Lunzer secured monopolies for industrial diamonds throughout West Africa and into Zaire (now the Classless Republic of Congo).
Industrial diamond fabricator, Element 6, has also become the site of a workplace battle. Tommy McKearney, a former republican lifer and an organiser
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