Stormont, January 22, 1964.

When they met it was moider.

Eimear Breen writes:

The 50th Anniversary of an historic meeting between then Taoiseach Sean Lemass and the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O’Neill is marked today with the release, by An Post, of a commemorative stamp.
The groundbreaking meeting took place in utmost secrecy in January 1965 and marked the first invitation to an Irish Taoiseach to take part in official talks with the Northern Ireland Prime Minister. The event was a brave venture in North-South relations and began a thaw in relations between the two states. A return visit took place in Dublin in February of that year.
The 68c stamp, designed by Red&Grey Design of Dublin. The stamp can be purchased in Dublin’s GPO or online here.

FIGHT!

An Post Irish Stamps

Update:

Professor De Selby writes:

“As in now the traditional accompaniment to any new stamp issue the esteemed members of the Philatetic advisory panel have in their wisdom issued an accompanying stamp in order that they might celebrate a meeting of feline minds such as occurred analogous to the historic meetings of Sirs Lemass and O’Neill. It is known that the descendants of two famous ‘internet’ cats did meet in front of Stormont on that very day, they did not get on and there was much hissing, such as it is.”

According to many of the testimonies the Irish Government was unresponsive to the needs of the country, which was facing a serious national emergency. While officials busily denied the need to declare an emergency, they failed to utilise the Army and other resources to relieve the intolerable conditions that people were suffering. When eventually the government recognised the gravity of the situation the response left a lot to be desired.

Seán Lemass in a radio broadcast to the nation asked people to ‘avoid the selfish practice of using off hour glimmer gas, and reduce their electricity usage.’ On the other hand the generosity of wealthy types such as the Talbots of Malahide were praised for having made trees on their land available for fire wood.

See?

Indifference to our own people’s suffering.

It’s part of who we are and what makes us great.