There’s thrilling news this morning that a photo of part of the Harry Clarke stained glass window (Adoration of the Magi) in St.Patrick’s Church Millstreet has been selected by An Post as one of three specially commissioned stamps for this Christmas. So a little bit of Millstreet will be seen all over the world this Christmas on letters and packages.
We featured the stained glass previously when it appeared on Fr.James McSweeney’s website 2u.ie. The photographer Bill Power is from Mitchelstown has an interest in Harry Clarke’s stained glass, has outlined in a nice piece how it all came about:
MY PHOTOGRAPH GOES GLOBAL
It’s official – the news that I’ve had to sit on for a few months.
“One of this year’s three Irish CHRISTMAS STAMPS is a photograph that I was commissioned to take in May by An Post. I won’t have the actual design for another few days, but I can publish the original image here. I will publish the actual stamp design once I get permission from An Post after the launch in Dublin later today.
The image is of a Harry Clarke stained glass window in the Catholic parish at Millstreet, County Cork. For those who haven’t heard of Harry, he was Ireland’s greatest stained glass artist. I’ve been interested in stained glass for many years and especially in his windows which are wonderful pieces of art. I have dozens of photographs of many of them.
I was commissioned by An Post to provide the photograph after they saw my image of the entire window on Flickr. You can only imagine my delight with this news. I never even considered that my photograph would be posted all over the world. That’s what I means when I alluded a couple of days ago to ‘going global’.
If you want to see the stamp, you’ll have to wait until Friday. And just in case you think all that is unimportant, let me tell you that approval for the design had to be given by the Minister for Communications, Energy and National Resources. I wonder if one could call that rubber stamping?
Thanks to my good friends with whom I shared this news awhile back. And thanks also for staying quiet about it in the meantime.”
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More information:
Bill Power’s article on the publication of the stamp
An Post’s press release on publication of the stamps
An Post’s Collector Issue (page 10)
An Post gives stamp of approval to Bill’s photo – This, after a stunning photograph he took of a stained glass window in Millstreet’s St Patrick’s Church was chosen by An Post for two of their special edition ‘Christmas 2014’ postage stamps … (the Corkman Nov 13th)
Stamp of approval for photographer from An Post – A Cork photographer is set to leave his stamp on the 2014 festive season, having had his work selected by An Post to adorn thousands of Christmas card and letter envelopes this month … (Irish Examiner 14th Nov)
Angel faced Paris Stamps her mark on Christmas – Dublin schoolgirl Paris Curtis (7) is “super excited” to be one of the youngest people to appear on An Post’s Christmas stamp. A photo of Paris taken four years ago when she was three years old will decorate this year’s 68c festive stamp… (Irish Independent 25th Nov)
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Bill gave a very interesting interview to Patricia Messenger on C103 the following day listen to it below:
Bill was interview on C103 radio this morning. we’ve added the audio to the bottom of the above article