Irish Nobel prizewinners honoured on stamps
Irish-born winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature are celebrated in a new set of postage stamps being issued simultaneously this week by An Post and Sweden Post.
The new stamps, which are not specifically denominated but are intended for domestic (currently 48c) use, commemorate WB Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney.
The An Post-Sweden Post joint issue is only the eighth ever undertaken by An Post. The stamps were unveiled at a function in Dublin today ahead of the formal launch which takes place on Friday in Stockholm.
Yeats was the first Irish person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923, followed in 1924 by George Bernard Shaw.
Playwright Samuel Beckett received the 1969 award and Derry poet Seamus Heaney was honoured in 1995.
Mr Heaney and members of Yeats and Beckett families attended the unveiling of the new stamps at Dublin’s Writers Museum.
The stamps will go on sale at all major post offices on Friday next. A special first day cover and special presentation pack is also available.
