2019-07-26 Fri

An Post of Ireland had issued a set of four commemorative postage stamps called the Space Exploration set to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing. However, two €1 stamps from the set feature a spelling mistake. The Irish word for "Moon" is "Gealach", but the stamps feature the incorrect spelling "Gaelach".

The error stamps feature the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins who were a part of the historic Apollo 11 moon mission. An Post officials claim that the original draft featured the right spelling and the error occurred during the production process when the letters “a” and “e” were interchanged. The error was not detected before the print run and the stamps were released for sale on 4th July. They also apologised for this mistake and assured that necessary stamps have been taken to avoid such situations in the future.

A retired Nasa astronaut named Cady Coleman had released the set last week and the error was detected by a citizen on Sunday. Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Eileen Collins and Ms Coleman are the four astronauts with Irish roots to be featured on the stamps.

People have been criticizing Government agencies for printing documents with spelling mistakes. However, it doesn’t seem as if a free online translator was used to convert English letters into Irish ones in this case.

Image Courtesy: An Post