US #3286
1999 Irish Immigration
- Issued to mark the 150th anniversary of the great Irish immigration to the United States
- Joint issue with the Irish Postal Administration (An Post) – its sister stamp is the 45¢ commemorative stamp issued by Ireland on the same day
- [Key fact about the stamp – 1 to 3 bullet points]
Stamp Category: Commemorative
Value: 33¢ First Class Mail Rate
First Day of Issue: February 26, 1999
First Day City: Boston, Massachusetts
Quantity Issued: 40,400,000
Printed by: Printed for Ashton Potter (USA) Ltd. By Sterling Sommer, Tonawanda, New York
Printing Method: Offset
Format: Panes of 20 (Horizontal 4 across, 5 down)
Perforations: 11.2
Tagging: Phosphored paper
Why the stamp was issued: Jointly issued with Ireland commemorate the 150th anniversary of the great Irish immigration to the United States after the potato famine struck Ireland in the 1840s. Ireland issued a 45¢ commemorative stamp on the same day as the US stamp.
About the stamp design: Pictures the Dunbrody sailing ship, an example of the one of the ocean-going vessels that brought Irish immigrants to America. The US stamp uses the word “immigration” (movement to a new homeland) while the Irish stamp uses “emigration” (departure for another country).
Special design details: Pictures an oil painting by Dennis Lyall of the Dunbrody entering the harbor. The foreground includes an image of a pier with barrels, ropes, and a moored vessel with carved wooden maiden on the bow. Lyall said he chose to depict the ship moving from right to left because “We all go around with a mental map, with north up, east on the right, and west on the left… If you’re sailing from Ireland to America, you’re going from right to left. It’s a very basic thing, but if the ship were going the other way it just wouldn’t feel as if it was coming to America.”
First Day City: The First Day of Issue Ceremony was originally to be held in Boston, but a winter storm dropped 18 inches of snow on New England, meaning the USPS had to host the ceremony at the US Capitol instead and broadcast it to Boston.
History the stamp represents: Religious persecution, extreme poverty, crop failures, and overcrowding forced nearly 3.5 million Irish people to abandon their homeland and seek prosperity in the United States between 1820 and 1880. Ireland’s poor peasant class suffered the greatest hardships.
In 1660, less than one million people lived in Ireland. By 1840, the population had jumped to eight million. This had a large effect on landless Irish, who toiled desperately on patches of ground rented from absentee land owners. To accommodate the increase in people, land holdings were divided into smaller parcels. Most farmers weren’t able to produce enough food from these two- or three-acre plots to feed their families. Then disaster struck. The potato famine of 1845 pushed families who depended on milk and potatoes to starvation. As a result, many abandoned their homeland.
Irish immigration peaked during the 1840s, when two million people arrived on America’s shores. Most settled in the cities where they landed: mainly New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Soon, the Irish were establishing churches and building communities. Also, Irish laborers became the mainstay of construction crews who built the canal and railroad systems of this country.
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