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Welcome to the Website of the Irish Philatelic Circle

Important Note - the DVD of all back issues of Irish Philately is now available - see below for full details of how to get your copy.

Introduction

The Circle seeks to further the study of the Stamps, Philately and Postal History of Ireland.

Amongst the areas of interest to our members are:-

• Pre stamp material
• Irish Postal history from earliest times
• GB stamps used in Ireland
• Registered, Express and Censored mail
• the Transition Period (1916-25),
• Irish overprints on GB stamps (1922-35)
• First Day Covers
• Airmails, including first flights
• Maritime mail
• Destination mail
• Postage due items
• Postmarks and Cancellations of all sorts
• and above all the Stamps themselves from Overprints to Modern material, anything Irish in fact, and that includes Northern Ireland just as much as the Republic.

Amongst the benefits of membership of The Irish Philatelic Circle:-

• Quarterly journal  (Irish Philately)
• Regular meetings in London
• Annual general meeting and display competition
• Regular auctions for members to buy and sell
• and the means to contact those with a common philatelic interest

The majority of our members are in Britain and Ireland but we have members from all around the World and you are welcome to join us wherever you may live.

To find out more or join the Circle please contact either our Membership Secretary Martin Taylor or the Webmaster Stan Challis who will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

The next AGM will be held in Dublin in April/ May 2011.  Details to follow.

A selection of recent articles from Irish Philately is available by clicking on the links at the right.  These will be changed from time to time but to get the full content you will need to become a member. 

The Members’ Area is available only to members of the Irish Philatelic Circle and contains a growing library of information that is generally not readily available elsewhere together with details of other projects being undertaken by the Membership. 

DVD  Philip Kane has scanned all previous issues of Irish Philately (back to the original newsletters of the Irish Philatelic Study Group in 1960) and these are now available on disk.  Several supplements are also included and the disk represents tremendous value with nearly 200 issues included.  Price for members is Euro22 (£20 or USD33): for non-members the price is Euro30 (£27 or USD45) to include post and packing.  Please contact Philip directly to order your copies.

Latest news: Ken Smith (of the British Postmark Society) has kindly allowed us to add to the members pages all his research on the Post Offices of Northern Ireland giving a full and up to date list of openings, closures, changes of status etc. This is a valuable and unique resource which it is hoped will be invaluable to those members researching Northern Ireland.

Members  If you have not already contacted me for your password, please do so by clicking on my contact details above. 

We now receive the Journal of the GBPS on a regular basis.  Please go to the Members pages to find out what is in the current edition.  I will be happy to let you have copies of articles that are of interest to you.

The June issue of Irish Philately should now be with members.   The contents include:-

• Post and Go at Belfast - Brian Warren
• Crookhaven Wireless Station - Florence MacCarthy
• The GAA issue of 1934 - John Lennon
• W R Lane-Joynt - a short biography by Heloise Mitchell
• The myserty of Arran Island’s first Postmark - David MacDonnell and Nigel Aldwell
• Skeletons - some notes from the Editor
• The Skeleton Postmarks of Co Antrim - a listing by Jim Rankin
• The Editor’s Challenge - information from Ronny Vogt re early US airmails

Copy date for the September edition is 15 August.

Finally, MEMBERS, please see the June edition of Irish Philately and let me have a note of your County Wicklow skeleton postmarks PLEASE !!

Officers 2010-2011

• President:   Paddy Smithers, Dublin
• Vice President:   Barry Cousins, Malaysia
• Secretary:   Ray How, Essex, England
• Treasurer:   Martin Taylor, Leicester, England
• Editor and Webmaster:   Stan Challis, Guernsey
• Auctioneer:  Paddy Smithers, Dublin
• Irish area secretary:   John Lennon, Dublin
• Southern area secretary:   Peter Wood, London
• Committee members:   Brian Warren, Dublin;  Jacques Renollaud, Paris;  Finbar O’Mahony, Dublin;  Frans Hermse, Netherlands; John Matthews, Donegal, Ireland; Michael Priestley Edinburgh; Philip Kane, Dublin.