Stamps Commemorate 1915 Gallipoli Landings
Two new stamps were issued today by An Post to commemorate the Gallipoli Landings of World War 1, part of a disastrous Allied attempt to control the sea route to Russia in 1915.
23/04/2015
Press Release issued by An Post
Stamps Commemorate 1915 Gallipoli Landings
Two new stamps were issued today by An Post to commemorate the Gallipoli Landings of World War 1, part of a disastrous Allied attempt to control the sea route to Russia in 1915. The campaign cost the lives of some 3,000 Irishmen serving in the British Army at the time.
Designed by Dublin-based Vermillion Design, a 68c stamp shows a photograph of Irish soldiers in a trench at Gallipoli while a €1 stamp features the SS River Clyde, the landing ship which carried 2,000 of the 70,000-strong invasion force. A special First Day Cover envelope shows Staff Sergeant William Cosgrove from Ballinookera, Co Cork, of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, who received the Victoria Cross for bravery during the ‘V’ Beach landings. All may be viewed and purchased at www.irishstamps.ie; main post offices and the GPO, Dublin.
The stamps were unveiled today at Collins Barracks by the cast of Pals, an immersive World War 1 experience by award winning ANU Productions, currently running at Collins Barracks until April 30th. It tells the story of a group of young rugby-playing friends who made up the ill-fated 7th Battalion of The Royal Dublin Fusiliers and who underwent their initial British Army training at Collins Barracks, then named the Royal Barracks, before being deployed to Gallipoli.
The Campaign began with a failed naval attack by British and French ships on Turkey’s Dardanelles Straits and was followed by a major land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25th, 2015. This also failed after eight months’ fighting due to a total underestimation of the Turkish army’s fighting ability and a lack of both military intelligence and preparedness for the terrain and climate on the part of the Allies.
The National Museum of Ireland’s major exhibition Recovered Voices – Stories of the Irish at War 1914 – 1915 continues at Collins Barracks, unveiling the complexity of the Great War and its remembrance in Ireland by showing the huge variety of ways in which Irish men and women were personally involved. About 21,000 Irishmen were already serving in the British Army when war broke out in 1914 and a further 47,000 joined in the early years of the War. The Exhibition looks at the social, economic and political reasons Irish soldiers joined the British Army and their fate - more than half of them were dead by Christmas 1914. It also looks at the Irish regiments who went to the Western Front in 1914 and to Gallipoli in 1915. See
Exhibition details here.
Media contact: An Post Press Office – pressoffice@anpost.ie or Tel: 086 2530697