An Post have apologised after a member of the public spotted a spelling mistake on their new four-stamp Space Exploration collection.
The new set of postage stamps, launched to commemorate moon landing, feature a misspelling of the Irish word for ‘moon’.
The word, which is found on the bottom left of the €1 stamp, is spelt “gaelach” - which translates as ‘the Irish’.
The correct spelling of the word is “gealach”.
Therefore, the translated sentence reads ‘50th anniversary of the first Irish landing’ instead of '50th anniversary of the first moon landing’.
The mistake appears on the stamps featuring Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins.
Cady Coleman and Eileen Collins also feature on the stamps, which were created to honour their Irish roots.
The mistake was spotted by a number of people on Twitter in recent days.
Don't want to spoil the 50th anniversary party, but surely An Post that shoud be 'gealach', not gaelach? Anybody??https://t.co/cPSU8WNVHR
— John Toal (@johnnytoal) July 20, 2019
A dhaoine uaisle in @Postvox, ní ionann #Gaelach (Irish) & #gealach (moon). #Apollo50 pic.twitter.com/t0etmqZZua
— Marion Ní Shúilleabháin (@Marion_Ni_S) July 21, 2019
“Should have consulted a 'moon' teoir,” one reply read.
In a statement, An Post said the error occurred during the "production process".
The letters 'a' and 'e' were transposed in the Irish language title of the stamps. While the original draft of the Irish text was correct the word gealach (moon) appeared incorrectly as gaelach (Irish) in two of the four stamps featured
An Post went on to say that the error was not spotted before the print date on July 4.
“An Post apologies for the error, and has taken steps to ensure that this will not happen again. We hope this will not detract from a wonderful celebration of an epic event.”
One small spelling error by An Post, one giant facepalm from the Gaeltacht community.