An Post: Celebrating Irish musical icons through the years

In the days before rock’n’roll, stamps were a big thing with teenagers. It was an era in which imported comics like Lion, Tiger and Hotspur were as eagerly awaited by Irish teens as the latest pair of Taylor Swift embroidered socks would be today.

Mostly published in Britain, these comics often contained ads for sets of postage stamps issued by foreign, sometimes unheard of, countries. Readers could buy the stamps and then stick them into stamp albums, gradually building their own collection.

Back then, across the world, stamps usually involved staid portrayals of monarchs, politicians and other hitorically important figures. Saints, popes, inventors and key buildings also featured. Serious collectors would buy pre-gummed paper hinges with which to affix the stamps into gridded pages in their albums. Packed pages elicited the approval of parents, the admiration of other adults and the envy of one’s peers.

That fascination still persists. Nowadays, Ireland even has its own quarterly magazine for Irish stamp collectors. It’s called The Collector and it includes the latest news, new stamp issues, first day covers, exhibition dates and annual stamp programmes.

Being selected as the subject for a stamp is a huge honour. In fact in Ireland, where there is no honours system as such, it remains the single most significant way in which an individual, or a group, can have the national or global importance of their lives and their work acknowledged and celebrated.

An Post has taken this aspect of its role very seriously. Many of Ireland’s greatest writers and literary figures have been given the stamp of approval. Beginning in the 1980s, there is a history too of Irish musical figures having their work recognised.

Among those featured in the first musical series in 1984 and 1985 were Johann Sebastian Bach – who had no Irish connections that we know of; George Frederic Handel, whose masterpiece ‘Messiah’ had its premiere in Fishamble Street in Dublin; the legendary 17th century Irish harpist and composer Turlough Carolan; prolific Dublin 19th century composer Charles Villiers Stanford; and Count John McCormack from Athlone, Co. Westmeath – a favourite of James Joyce who we’d now talk about as a global superstar…

In the same vein, the internationally popular opera singer from Castlebar Co. Mayo, Margaret Burke Sheridan, was featured on the hundredth anniversary of her birth, in 1989.

Looking back on those early musical subjects, you can see that a clear distinction was made at offiicial level in Ireland – as indeed in the UK and elsewhere – between high culture, including classical music, and opera, and what we now call popular culture.

However, a sea change occurred in 2002, when – for the first time – rock music was afforded genuine recognition by the Irish State, with the issue of four stamps honouring Irish Rock Legends: Rory Gallagher, Philip Lynott, Van Morrison and U2.

Stamps were no longer just about celebrating the past: they were about honouring the present too. It offered a clear statement, effectively led by An Post, that the work of Ireland’s modern musicians was deemed to be of enduring cultural – and national – importance.

That landmark series of four behind us, An Post continued to push the outside of the envelope. In 2006, traditional and folk groups The Chieftains, The Dubliners, Altan and The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem made their way to the top right-hand corner of envelopes and postcards.

A second phase in that Irish Music series extended the recognition to the marvellous work of Planxty, De Dannan, The Bothy Band and The Tulla Céilí Band. Eagle-eyed observers will have noted that the incomparable Dónal Lunny was getting the nod twice in that gang of four!

Top showbands were next to receive the nod in the 2010 ‘Legendary Showbands’ series. In a sense, this was the moment when the decision to embrace popular culture was made complete. An Post had broadened its view of who deserved a place in the postage stamp pantheon, to include the music of a whole range of figures of whom we could say: their contribution mattered to Irish people.

They were broadening the remit in other ways too. In 2019 a new issue of four stamps focussed on Great Irish Songs, with a stamp dedicated to each. One was ‘Danny Boy’ – perhaps the ultimate Irish classic, the lyrics for which were, of course, written by Fred Weatherly, an English lawyer, to a famous Irish melody, known as ‘The Derry Air’. Other songs featured in that set were ‘With Or Without You’ by U2; ‘On Raglan Road’, based on Patrick Kavanagh’s poem and most famously sung by Luke Kelly of The Dubliners; and ‘Dreams’ by The Cranberries.

That music was now a vital element in An Post’s plans was clear when – that same year – An Post commemorated the 50th anniversary of the formation of Thin Lizzy with a two stamp set, designed by U2 designer Steve Averill and using marvellously striking illustrations by the celebrated Thin Lizzy album sleeve artist Jim Fitzpatrick.

Musical themes, it seemed, were flowing thick and fast now. The following year the focus turned fully to U2, with four stamps issued that represented different eras in the band’s progress to world domination, from The Joshua Tree in 1987 to Songs of Experience in 2017. Here, the design was in the hands of another U2 designer, Shaughn McGrath, who – in a very U2-esque touch – gave each stamp a distinctly different shape.

McGrath was again in the creative seat for a set highlighting Irish Singer Songwriters at Glastonbury, with Christy Moore, Hozier, Lisa Hannigan and Sinead O’Connor, all being depicted in full live performance mode.

Since then, in 2023 a series of five stamps – featuring Philomena Begley, Nathan Carter, Big Tom, Daniel O’Donnell and Cliona Hagan – celebrated the Irish Country Music scene. And the good news for 2024 is that there is another, important set of four new stamps on the way in September.

And so we end with a word to the wise: check An Post’s social media regularly or keep an eye on hotpress.com for further updates. Make no mistake: the new music stamps that are in the works, and due for imminent release, will be more than a bit special…

Jim Fitzpatrick remembers preparing the stamp set-of-two that celebrated Thin Lizzy's 50th Anniversary:

Until they were invited to collaborate on An Post’s 50th anniversary set commemorating Thin Lizzy, Jim Fitzpatrick and Steve Averill had never actually worked together. Averill had produced powerful material for U2 from the get-go, and Fitzpatrick had designed album covers for Thin Lizzy – and was noted worldwide for his iconic depiction of Che Guevara. But this was a very different challenge for both of them.

“It was a fantastic project to work on,” Jim says. “We were doing two stamps. Early on, it was agreed that we’d have one stamp with Philo on it and another that was more symbolic.”

Philip Lynott is enormously charismatic, which made the one using his image more straightforward – Jim delivered a classic Philo pose, with one eye hidden behind his hair. Finding the right symbol was a different dilemma. It was solved with Jim’s marvellous painting of a black rose, with red tear-drops.

“It worked really well as a companion piece,” Jim says. “It’s tied to the idea of Ireland as ‘My Dark Rosaleen’ – but, as fans will know, Black Rose was the title of one of Thin Lizzy’s albums and it has become symbolically connected to Philo over the years. So as a combination they fitted perfectly together.”

Jim had no problem with the fact that the artwork would ultimately be seen in miniature. The solution, he and Steve agreed, was to have the image occupy as much of the stamp space as possible.

“I was happy to be guided by Steve as to how we approached it,” he says. “It was a really rewarding experience working with him. He did such a beautiful job.”

While his own instinct would have been to shout it from the rooftops, preparing stamps for publication understandably has the aura of a ‘State secret’.

Jim Fitzpatrick

“I was fully aware of the honour involved in being asked to design a stamp – and in having one’s visual works used! So while I was bursting to tell everybody, I had to stay quiet until all was officially revealed,” he laughs.

Jim is still a keen stamp collector himself, and is thrilled at how stamps in general have become accepted as a unique artform.

Nowhere moreso than in Ireland. You might even say that Irish stamps punch well above their size, thanks to the work of An Post.