Irish Forerunners & Political Labels

Fig 1. Front cover of the David Feldman handbook

A wonderful book, and essential for all enthusiastic collectors of Irish philately! And there, taking up 80% of the front of the dust jacket, is a reproduction of the 1865-67 Republic of Ireland one cent black on green stamp with a harp featured centrally in the design. Wait a minute, I hear you say, that stamp isn’t in my Stanley Gibbons, or Scott, or Michel catalogue, and anyway, everyone knows that Ireland didn’t issue its first postage stamps until 1922! What’s going on here? What garden path are you trying to lead us down, Mike? And what on earth is a stamp that isn’t even listed in any major catalogue doing on the front cover of one of the key handbooks about Irish philately?

Fear not, intrepid reader! All will be revealed, and all of the pieces will fall into place (well, hopefully) as you read on through this series of articles. So sit back, make yourself comfortable, and we’ll plunge right in to this popular area of Irish collecting!

Forerunners
Before we get started, it might be helpful to explain just exactly what a ‘forerunner’ is. In a nutshell, and for the purposes of the issues that we’ll be looking at, they are stamps or labels that are used (or prepared for use), in a country, prior to the issue of the first official postage stamps for general use in that country. This doesn’t always mean that they were intended to pre-pay postage, they may also have been issued to promote a particular political cause or agenda, and this is mainly the case with the Irish examples.

The 1865-67 Fenian Issue
During the American Civil War, approximately 190,000 Irish-American immigrants served in both the Union and Confederate armies, with almost 80% of that number fighting for the North. When the war ended in 1865, a group of Irish veterans, members of an Irish Nationalist organization, Clan na Gael (Family of the Gael), which had been established in the late 1850’s, and was better known as the Fenian Brotherhood, realised that a great way to promote their cause was to produce postage stamps for the ‘Republic of Ireland’, even though no such place existed at that time.

After all, by the mid 1860’s, many countries were using stamps to pre-pay postage, and it was widely realised that not only did a stamp on a letter pay the postage, it was also a wonderful ‘paper ambassador’ for the country or state of origin.

Around the same time that Clan na Gael appeared in the US, The Irish Brotherhood, an organization with the same objectives, was established in Ireland. Both movements were described as ‘secret, separatist, physical force organizations whose object ‘was national (Irish) independence’. Both organizations were involved in violent actions against the British authorities.

In Ireland, The Irish Brotherhood were involved in unsuccessful risings in Dublin and Kerry during 1867. The Fenian Brotherhood were involved in a number of terrorist activities including armed raids over the border into Canada, assassinations, and dynamiting railways and buildings. These activities included between 800 and 1300 (accounts vary) Fenians, under the command of Colonel John O’Neill, actually capturing Fort Erie on the Great Lakes in 1866.

These activities, both in Ireland and the US/Canada, had two main purposes, to force the British government into granting Ireland independence, and to raise the visibility of this cause to the world at large. It was in anticipation of Irish independence coming about sooner, rather than later, that these ‘Fenian issue’ stamps came to be. Independence did not happen, and so, of course, the stamps were never used.

The stamps themselves (actually, essays is a more accurate term, as they never really advanced beyond that stage) vary in design from denomination to denomination, but all share a harp as the central motif. They were produced, probably by S. Allen Taylor of Boston, from wood blocks in three different denominations, 1c black on green (this is the one featured on the Feldman handbook mentioned earlier), 1c black on pale blue, 1c black on rose mauve, 3c green, 24c deep green, and 24c mauve-purple, and 24c black on yellow. (See fig 2.)

They are all imperforate, although the 3c is also recorded perforated, and all are quite rare. To emphasise this point, in his handbook Feldman states: ‘Most of the exmples in circulation are forgeries, copied from magazine or catalogue illustrations’. It also seems that small printings, of at least the 1c and 24c values, were produced around 1893 from metal plates.

Fig 2. A faulty, but genuine, 3c Fenian issue

Although these stamps were never issued, the c and 24c have appeared on Irish postage stamps. These two designs featured on the two values of the Fenian Rising Centenary set issued in October 1967. For most of us, owning this set will probably be the closest we’ll ever get to having the real thing!

1893 ‘Erin go Bragh’ Issue
Very little is known about this particular stamp. It is thought that it may have been produced at the same time as the 1 893 Fenian metal plate printings, It is similar in design to the 24c Fenian issue, but is inscribed ‘Erin go Bragh’ (Ireland for ever), and is denominated at one penny rather than in cents. It is known in green and dull green shades, and is of similar rarity to the Fenian issues, and the same warnings about forgeries apply. (See fig 3.)

Fig 3. The 'Erin go Bragh' stamp

1893 Colonial Design Issue

These interesting ‘stamps’ probably don’t quite ‘cut the mustard’ as forerunners in the real sense of the word. They are actually bogus labels, produced from plates used to illustrate the British Colonial key type stamps in European stamp catalogues of the late 19th century. The 2009 edition of the Hibernian Handbook & Catalogue prefaces it’s listing of them with these remarks: ‘These stamplabels are included here as a bow to tradition. They have been listed as Irish forerunners in many respected publications andhave had their place in many famous collections as part of the history of Irish stamps. However, they are bogus in origin’ Three values are known inscribed ‘Ireland’ in varying styles at the top, the ½d greygreen, 2½d blue and 4d brown. (See fig 4.) There is also a 4d rose-red inscribed ‘Sligo’ . All are perforated rough 11½. Despite their dubious status, they are still rare and sought after, with the 4d brown having the lowest catalogue value of the group, coming in at a mere €1800 in the Hibernian!

Fig 4. 2½d 1893 Colonial Design

As with the Fenian reprints and the Erin go Bragh issue, the Colonial design issues also appeared in 1893. Because of the timing, it seems very likely that all of these forerunners were produced to coincide with, and promote the introduction of Prime Minister Gladstone’s second Irish Home Rule Bill into parliament that year. The bill passed in the House of Commons, 347 votes to 304, on September 1st, 1893, but was soundly defeated in the House of Lords, 419 votes to 41. Almost 30 years would pass, and two more Irish Home Rule Bills would come before parliament, in 1914 and again in 1920, before the provisional government of Ireland would issue it’s first ‘real’ postage stamps in February, 1922.

Before we close off, it’s worth mentioning one other 19th century issue with a definite Irish theme, which was probably produced in the US. The design is clearly based on the US 1861 1c blue Franklin issue, but has the letters ‘HHGH’ in the four corners, and is inscribed ‘IRELAND’ above the portrait, and ‘AMERICA’ below. There doesn’t seem to be any information available regarding the origins of this stamp (or what the ‘HHGH’ might stand for), but an educated guess would suggest that it is a contemporary of the Fenian Rising stamps, as the US 1c stamp on which it based was in use at that time.

* Published by kind permission of the Editor of Stamp News Australasia.