Double Post Box, at the junction of Kildare Street with South Leinster Street, Dublin 2, and diagonally opposite the Kildare Street Hotel. Some older boxes remain in use, but this is an early twentieth-century box: after Irish independence, the old-style post boxes introduced by Trollope continued to be cast, with initials for Posts and Telegraphs as here — or the symbol of a harp (the emblem of Home Rule), or Saorstát Eireann (the Irish Free State), or with a combination of these — replacing the British crown and royal insignia. More recently they simply bear the word Post, An Post being the name of the Irish State's postal service. They were now painted this distinctive shade of green instead of red. When some post boxes were painted red recently (March 2016) as part of An Post's recent 1916 Easter Rising history project, there was an outcry.

This post box is in a busy area, near several museums, the National Library and Trinity College, Dublin. It has one aperture for Ireland's home mail, labelled Áth Cliath, the Gaelic for Dublin; and one which has lost its label but is meant to be used for other destinations.

Photographs by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print document. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Reference

Mulhall, James. "Ireland's postal service paints post boxes Royal Mail red and people are furious." Irish Post. 28 March 2016. Web. 17 July 2016.

"The Post Box." Post: History and Heritage. Web. 17 July 2016.


Created 17 July 2016