"The Country of the Young: interpretations of youth and childhood in Irish culture"

The Four Courts Press have just published this very interesting book:"The Country of the Young: interpretations of youth and childhood in Irish culture"

I was honoured that Kelly Matthews (co-editor with John Countryman) asked to use a detail of this rough I did for my Children of Lir stamp for the cover.


Here's the blurb:"Throughout the history of modern Ireland, cultural representations of youth and childhood have served as focal points for discussions of social and political issues. Topics for the essays in this collection range from Famine-era women’s autobiographies to filmic portrayals of post-Good Friday Northern Ireland; from considerations of Patrick Pearse and Máirín Cregan to Anne Enright and Claire Keegan. The result is a complex and provocative view of childhood experiences in modern Ireland, and of the ways in which youth and childhood have been interpreted in the work of Irish writers, politicians, dramatists and filmmakers."

My Angel Stamp Design

This was one of my favourite stamp designs but sadly it didn't make it through An Post's vetting process.
It's a shame because it was certainly quite a different approach from my usual work.

My First Day Covers for An Post

Here are a bunch of the first day covers that I designed to go with the stamps I did for An Post.
The top one with the rooftop drawing and the old fashioned typography is my favourite by a long way.

Nativity Stamps from 1999

 Here are another set of roughs paired with the printed Christmas stamps that I did for An Post back in 1999.
I think these were the Christmas stamps I was most pleased with.

Oisín and Niamh of the Golden Hair

I recently rediscovered another of my roughs for the mythological stamps I designed a number of years ago for An Post.
This one illustrates the story of Oisín and Niamh of the Golden Hair.

And this is the finished stamp.

Stamps designs: Nollaig 1999

These are roughs for a set of stamps that I designed for Christmas 1999.
They are my favourites of all the stamps I have done for An Post, perhaps because my nephews and niece modelled as the children in the nativity play.

And here are the finished stamps.