Postman Pat
BY EOGHAN MacCORMAIC
I see that An Post have just issued a new edition of stamps to
commemorate various post boxes used over the last century and a
half in Ireland. Very pleasant too. I've long had an interest in
post boxes, and I have to confess that to me a post box is more
than a hole into which you drop the odd letter and the odd bundle
of Christmas cards. No, in the Irish scenario, a post box is a
reflection of history.
Somebody bought me a present last week of a full sheet of the new
stamps, knowing my interest in them and I duly framed the trophy
and placed it on the mantlepiece. Every time I look at it it does
my heart good to see all those green boxes. I don't care what
Connolly said, when he scorned the idea of freedom as being no
more than painting the boxes green, in aesthetic and political
terms give me a green box any day over one of those red Royal
mail pillar boxes.
Mind you, the pillar box itself is an endangered species if I'm
not mistaken. Co-inciding with the arrival of the stamps to
celebrate the diversity of the boxes, I've notices a few gaping
holes in the streetscape where handsome round boxes once stood.
Ripped out by progress, the pillar box is being replaced by what
can only be described as a huge iced lolly on a stick, green
livery of course, but as shapelessy modern as the pillar box was
strikingly historic. I'm worried.
What odds, you may ask, what shape the post boxes have? The
important thing is that they can hold the letters secure until An
Post arrives to collect them. Fair enough. But what of all the
poor bewildered tourists who - in the mistaken and forlorn belief
that Ireland has the greatest distribution of postboxes per
capita in Europe - happily drop their holiday post cards into
street litter bins, also painted a bright colour of green. I'm
surprised the EC has allowed us to change the boxes unilaterally.
Or maybe the change is a directive. Maybe, soon, all the boxes
will be replaced by the lollies and painted blue with yellow
stars. I'm even more worried.
The collection of stamps just published shows four of the older
boxes still in use; a tall square free-standing box, with a crown
on top, one with SE (Saorstat Éireann) on the door, a fat double
pillar box from the turn of the century and a hexagonal pillar
box from 130 years ago. Crafty observors will note that all of
the boxes are legacies of British rule in Ireland and throughout
the country, on remote corners, sunk into ivy covered walls, or
in once busy streets of villages in decline you'll find these
boxes. Many have crowns and VR worked into their crest, or ER or
GR...Victoria Regina, Edward and George Rex, titles as redundant
in Ireland now as Tyrannosaurus Rex; the boxes are a living
proof of predators who once stalked our country.
The Saorstat Éireann box is really a Free State door attached
to a British box, a mongrel, with the crown above and the
liberated door below. While such transitional boxes are few and
far between there are seemingly thousands of the previous British
boxes scattered all over the country. IN 1922 out went John Bull
and in came Postman Pat a slap of green paint covered the red,
and saved the fledgling state a fortune in replacing them.
Now, however, it looks as if a decision has been taken to
modernise and replace old boxes. What is it all in aid of? Less
cluttered streets? Uniformity? Preventing a rash of claims for
back injury to postal workers? Who knows. What is clear, however,
is that we run the risk soon of having one more vestige of
British rule vanishing for ever, and in its place boring, PC
street furniture. I never thought I'd see the day, but it's come.
I don't want them to go. I want them to stay. I liked Victorian,
Edwardian and Georgian boxes. They said something to me, they
told me my past, they reminded me of what we wanted to forget.
And they were prettier. Brits Out, that's what I say, but leave
your boxes behind.
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