Ireland’s literary achievement in the 21st century has been marked by the launch of four stamps by An Post.

Featured on the stamps are the novels Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín; Room by Emma Donoghue; Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan and That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern.

Critically acclaimed best-sellers, all were released this century, and all, too, were adapted for film.

The stamps were designed by book jacket illustrator Jack Smyth in his first stamp design commission from An Post.

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Tóibín, the only author present in person for the launch in the GPO, joked he thought firstly, when he was being approached by An Post, that they were looking for a portrait of himself. He wanted, like Patrick Pearse, to show his best side.

The Brooklyn stamp shows the waves made by the stern of a ship crossing the Atlantic.

“I really like the image. I must tell my publisher to get the awful things off the front of my book and put this on instead,” he said.

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Speaking by video-link from her home in Canada, Emma Donoghue said she was in tears when she saw the stamp for Room.

“Emigrants often assume that we have left the country and it moves on without us. So, for me to feel that my novel is treasured enough to feature on this set of Irish stamps with the other authors being honoured is a huge thing,” she said.

“To feel recognised as part of the infrastructure of Irish culture by appearing on this stamp, I couldn’t be more touched.”

McGahern’s novel was published in 2002 and he died 20 years ago in 2006. His biographer Frank Shovlin said McGahern would find it humorous that the State would seek to honour him, after he was fired from his job as a primary schoolteacher in Clontarf in 1965 following the banning of his second novel The Dark.

“McGahern is one of Ireland’s great artists and I think That They May Face The Rising Sun is a book that is very much loved by a generation of Irish readers,” he said.

“I hope that this stamp might prompt those who have not read it to make it part of their world.”

Keegan did not contribute to the launch, but Small Things Like These producer Catherine McGee said the novel deserved the accolade.

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