When a people are different from their outside rulers, the desire for independence grows. How much independence and the method to get it are issues to be dealt with. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take tour first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Todays stamp was an early issue of the Irish Free State. The remarkable thing to a non Irish nearly a hundred years later is how Catholic the stamps are. The vast majority of Irish were Catholic, and Catholics felt repressed by a Britain that of course had its own doctrinally similar Church of England. Early stamps of a free state are a way to define who you are as a nation. To Ireland of the 20s, that meant a very conservative form of Catholicism. To foreign eyes, one may wonder if the Irish were trading some other freedoms for this religious purity.
The stamp today is issue A5, a 2 pence stamp issued by the Irish Free State on June 22nd, 1929. It marks the century of Catholic Emancipation in Ireland the great accomplishment of Daniel O’Connell, who is featured on the three stamps of the issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents used.
Daniel O’Connell was born in 1775 to a formerly wealthy Catholic family. Ireland was ruled by neighboring Great Britain and there was much turmoil between the Protestant British and the Catholic Irish. From a still wealthy uncle Daniel was able to receive a first rate education and was received into the legal bar. As a condition of his educational help, his uncle required that Daniel not participate in any violent uprisings against Britain. This meant that Daniel’s reform efforts were within the system of British law.
O’Connell ran for the British Parliament and won a seat. At the time the oath sworn by new members included fealty to the Church of England. Up to then this had kept the Irish delegation Protestant and thereby unrepresentative. When the British realized that the failure to seat O’Connell would likely lead to rebellion in Ireland, the law was changed. The Catholic Emancipation Act allowed them to omit that part of the oath and be seated in Parliament. King George IV only signed the new law after Lord Wellington threatened to resign if he did not. King George quipped that Lord Wellington was king of England, O’Connell was king of Ireland and he himself was only dean of Oxford.
At home in Ireland, O’Connell was often at odds with both militants and with those more supportive of the Protestants. After criticizing a company in Ireland considered a center of Protestant power., O’Connell was challenged to a duel. He killed the man and was forever sorry as it had left the man’s family destitute. His offer to support the widow was refused but he was allowed to support the man’s daughter, which he did for the next 30 years.
O’Connell helped his son acquire a brewery that put out a beer bearing his name. At the time Arthur Guinness was both a political rival as well as a maker of a rival beer. As such, ones beer choice in Ireland often also spoke to one’s politics. O’Connell died in 1847.
The Irish Free State was pretty close to O’Connell’s ideal for Ireland’s future. Some thought it not independent enough and one of the political parties pushed for a full break from England and leaving the Commonwealth. Ireland proved just how free it was when this party was allowed to take power after winning an election. Ireland ended the free state in 1937, sat out World War II, and left the Commonwealth in 1949.
Well my drink is empty so I will pour another and toast Mr. O’Connell, but with a glass of Guinness, as I am somewhat to his right politically. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.