Recently I made mention in this column of celebrated Englishmen who had been commemorated on postage stamps of foreign countries. But at least one Irishman has also been honoured in this way abroad.
I am thinking of James David Bourchier, whose portrait appeared some years ago on a handsome violet stamp - I have only seen the one; there may have been others in the set - of one of the Balkan States, where, as Correspondent for The Times, he had become almost a king-maker in the chequered history of South-Eastern Europe. Before he went out there in 1888 he had been a master at Eton, and had taken a first-class Classical Tripos at King's College, Cambridge.
He went to Cambridge from T.C.D., where he was a Classical Scholar in 1870. In the Common Room of T.C.D. there is a pastel portrait of him wearing a fur-collared coat and a round fur hat - apparently his winter uniform in the Balkans. The portrait bears an illustrious list of decorations; Commander of the Order of Prince Danilo of Montenegro, Officer of the Orders of the Saviour of Greece (a distinction he shared with Mahaffy), of the Crown of Rumania and of St. Alexander of Bulgaria.
He was born in Co. Limerick in 1850 and died in 1920. Many will also remember his brother, William Chadwick Bourchier, who was Dean of Cashel till 1924.
If J. D. Bourchier was not the only Irishman to appear on a foreign stamp, I think I am safe in saying he is the only alumnus of T.C.D. to have had this honour. On our own stamps, of course, we have already had Father Mathew and Daniel O'Connell.
The Irish Times, June 12th, 1940.