An Post has released a stamp commemorating the 50th anniversary of the meeting between then taoiseach Sean Lemass and prime minister of Northern Ireland Terence O’Neill.
The 68 cent stamp features an image of O’Neill and Lemass outside Government Buildings at Stormont and is available from post offices or at the GPO stamp shop.
Lemass (1899 – 1971) was taoiseach from 1959 until 1966. His meeting with O’Neill took place in secret in January 1965 and was the first time a taoiseach was invited to take part in official talks with the North’s prime minister.
The event led to a short-lived softening of North-South relations with a return visit to Dublin taking place later that year.
The optimism of those initial meetings soon dissipated and four years later the North was in the grip of the Troubles.