Irish breakfasts stamp Collection
So, today’s the day! 28 April 2022.
The set of stamps I created for An Post, the Irish postal service, are issued today (see here). I’m both nervous - of how they’ll be received by all and sundry - and very excited. I suspect it’s every graphic designer’s dream to create a postal stamp and I am lucky enough to have created a set of four stamps, a First Day Cover envelope and a unique cancellation mark. Plus I did all the illustrations and, of course, the artwork. The whole shebang!
But above all I feel so proud, really, I feel it such an honour to have been commissioned by An Post. The theme was a perfect one for me, Irish Breakfasts. It was such a good fit that as soon as I had the brief in my little hands I was easily inspired. There had to be The Irish Fry (no baked beans, puhleese), Porridge was a no brainer (even though I’m not a huge fan of the texture of cooked porridge), the range of Irish Breads - soda farls, brown soda loaf - are items that I make and grace my breakfast table regularly and yes, I do enjoy a fruity Smoothie particularly during the summer! My favourite breakfast* treat, a simple boiled egg and soldiers, was chosen for the First Day Cover envelope. Hurray!
This was a project that began just as the first Covid lockdown began. I already have a home studio so there was no interruption to the creative process and it was good to have a lovely project to work on during those early days of Covid. The An Post project manager was a wonderful woman, Anne O’Neill, who kept the project moving and the approval process by the Stamp Committee was positive and straightforward. The stamps were to have been issued in 2021 but due to some early backlogs (Covid-logs) and the fact that some celebration stamps needed to hit non-moveable dates the issue of my stamp designs was delayed till his year.
Working on the project made me reminisce back to my childhood. Our Dad collected stamps and he would, every year or so, go to the local library and borrow the mighty Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue. A tomb of a book, he would go through his collection and record the values of the stamps in it. In case that sounds like a serious stamp collection I can assure you there were no hidden gems, no Penny Black (not that rare to be honest) hidden among the pages. It was a most common, unremarkable stamp collection but we kids loved the whole magic of it all. The delight of triangular stamps (wow!), the fabulous colours of stamps from far flung places, the foreign lettering, I noted how some countries loved exuberant colourful stamps, some were serious and monotone, they all seemed to reflect the country’s character in a tiny piece of print. It’s what probably started me down the graphic design route! I can see us all now, spread over the kitchen table trying not to mix up our packets of used stamps we had bought or had been given and always, always, spilling the little gummed glassine stamp hinges used to stick the stamps into an album.
That I now have designed a stamp set is just something the child Ailbhe would never have imagined. Dad would have been mighty impressed although he’d not have made a fuss, not one to get too excited but I reckon my stamps would have made it into his collection pretty quick smart.
Spookily, a few hours after I wrote this post yesterday in advance of Issue Day, I was sorting through some old bags from storage, a bag burst and out fell my old stamp album! I didn’t even know I had it still. How odd.
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*my favourite breakfast: as I said a runny boiled egg is always the big favourite, a weekend breakfast, but my weekday breakfast is a bowl of oats, half a teaspoon of cacao powder, a splash of tea (to dissolve the cacao), some fresh berries and a glug of homemade kefir. Never tire of it!
