41 Not Just a Postbox
Posted by Christine on Mar 30, 2015 in Ireland | 4 comments When Ron and I were in Cork a few weeks ago, we stopped on one of the city’s main streets to take a photograph of a postbox—what we call a mailbox in the US—when a couple about our age, laden with shopping bags and obviously walking home with their groceries, stopped to talk to us. As I moved around to get just the right angle on the postbox, their bemused expressions pretty much told me what they were thinking. “Excuse me,” said the man kindly, as one might talk to an old lady doing something embarrassing in public, “but it’s just a postbox.” We laughed. We’re used to people staring at us incredulously when we take pictures of postboxes in Ireland; I have a folder full of such photos on my computer. “Actually,” I said politely, pointing to the V R below the mail slot, “it’s not just a postbox; it’s a postbox that was put here during Queen Victoria’s reign and painted green in 1922.” “So it is!” they exclaimed, suddenly interested. “We never noticed that before,” said the woman, wanting to make up for her husband calling us out. I explained that my husband collects stamps, and so we are interested in postal history. “Thanks for showing us something about our city!” were their parting words. No matter who you are or where you live, you can always learn something about your home from outsiders who see it with different eyes. But the story of Irish postboxes is a particularly interesting one, fraught with political meaning, as so much on this island tends to be. In January of 1922, after a two year War of Independence with Britain and a six month truce during which treaty negotiations had taken place, the twenty-six counties that today make up the Republic of Ireland abruptly found themselves to be an independent entity that would be called the “Irish Free State.” The British army and government officers immediately started the process of pulling out, leaving the new provisional government to manage the transition. The Irish were eager to prove their ability to run a state and made a number of adaptive moves while more long term plans, including a new constitution, were in the works. But while other governmental activities could be hammered out over the coming few months, the mail had to be delivered day in and day out without interruption....read more