New national stamp marks The Freeman’s Journal
2 May 2024
Founded in 1763, The Freeman’s Journal was the principal nationalist daily newspaper in Dublin in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was associated in its earliest days with the ‘patriot’ opposition in the old Irish parliament in Dublin’s College Green and it later evolved into the unofficial organ of the Irish Party in the Westminster Parliament.
For 50 years, from 1841 to 1891, the Freeman was owned by the Gray family – three generations of them. The first of the Grays associated with the Freeman was Sir John Gray, whose statue stands in O’Connell Street in Dublin. After the victory of Sinn Féin over the Irish Party in the 1918 general election, the newspaper was sold to a Dublin businessman, Martin Fitzgerald, who tried unsuccessfully to rejuvenate it. It appeared for the last time on December 19th, 1924. Its title was subsequently bought by the Irish Independent.
The new ‘N’ rate stamp (€1.40), designed by Zinc, features The Freeman's Journal's logo, with the sun rising behind the old parliament building in Dublin (now Bank of Ireland). The accompanying limited edition First Day Cover envelope shows the newspaper's final front page from 1924 and a cartoon which was published in 1887.
Commenting on the new stamp, historian and author, Felix Larkin, who is also Chairperson of the Philatelic Advisory Committee said:
“The Freeman’s Journal was an important part of Dublin life for 161 years, and this is reflected in the fact that it figures prominently in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Its logo, which features on the new stamp, was a symbol of the newspaper’s moderate nationalist politics, seeking restoration of the Irish parliament abolished by the Act of Union of 1800. The cartoon on the First Day Cover envelope likewise expresses the newspaper’s Home Rule aspirations.
In its final years, the Freeman’s proprietor, Martin Fitzgerald, and the editor, Patrick Hooper, were imprisoned for publishing an article about army brutality in defiance of the censorship regulations then in force. Later, the Freeman strongly supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 – and in March 1922, a raiding party of anti-Treaty republicans broke up the Freeman’s machinery in protest. Freedom of the press was under challenge then, as it is today in so many parts of the world.”
The new stamp and First Day Cover are available in selected post offices nationwide and online at www.anpost.com/shop, with free delivery.
