Need help identifying a stamped envelope from Ireland

No luck here, from my Catalogues.

Postal Stationery
Saint Patrick blessing the Paschal Fire
Circa 1961

That’s a newer postal stationery item, but too new for my Whyte or Feldman catalogs and Hibernian doesn’t list postal stationery any longer. Ireland uses that same basic St. Patrick paschal fire design on many of the stamped modern postcards and envelopes that I’ve seen from An Post. Thus, it is not a scarce item.

Here’s a pic of entires from the 1990s, plus another design from the 80s.

LoL An Post drives my spellchecker bananas - it keeps changing “An” to “A”

Scott does list American postal stationery in their catalogue but hasn't included worldwide issues for a very long time - my 1894 (!) edition includes postal stationery but the next one on my bookshelf, the 1927 edition, no longer does.

My Hibernian is too new to list Irish postal stationery and my MacDonnell Whyte is too old to show your example, but I do have a Michel catalogue printed in 2000 which covers western European postal stationery.  Your indicium had already been used on three separate small envelopes by that time, 1995, 1998 & 1999, all of which served to commemorate St. Patrick's Day.  There were also various postcards issued, again listed in Michel as commemorating St. Patrick's Day - the example shown by philatelia is the 1999 issue, which then served a dual purpose of celebrating millennium festivals.

Without seeing the entire envelope it isn't possible to definitively identify your example but they can be described easily enough - if there's nothing else printed on your envelope other than the "stamp", it's the 1995 issue, U36.  If it has a blue PRIORITY / AERPHOST logo imprinted upon it, then it's the 1998 issue, U37.  If it also has "In the event of non-delivery return to" printed in the upper left, then it's U38, the 1999 issue.  And if it's newer than 1999 then my catalogue can't help!  All three of the above envelopes indicate no value but each of them was denominated at 32p.  The envelopes were sold with small collections of greeting cards.  In 1999, a large envelope was also sold which included not only greeting cards but also a CD with Irish folk music.  I'd gladly get a CD in the mail with Irish folk music!  Back in the day, I was a fan of the Green Linnet CD label which released Celtic music, both folk music and popular - perhaps my favourite track here, a blend of both ...



Ryan

Thanks philatelia, Ryan and rod222 for taking the time to look at this and do the research! There is no other printing on the envelope, the PAR AVION is a sticker. A coworker gave me this, guessing between 1994 and 1998 though I am not sure if she had just received it or had been hanging on to it for awhile. I had read the postmark as 1961 as well but 1981 makes more sense, I do not think the lady that gave me the cover was old enough to have been born in 1961 but it might not have been addressed to her, maybe her mother.

Based on the centering, what looks like a 1 could actually be the edge of the year piece and the year could actually end with a 6 not a 1.

Here is the full envelope.