post box

Wall-mounted cast-iron post box, c.1915, with ‘Post Office' in raised lettering to letter flap and maker's name to base in raised lettering, now illegible. Set in rendered pier to the south end of Mullingar.

An attractive, if simple, item of street furniture that represents an early-surviving artefact of mass-produced cast-iron ware. The modest design of the box is enhanced by the various rasied elements. The form of this post box suggests that it was a pre-Independence post box, probably erected during the reign of George V (1910-1936) as post boxes of this date sometimes had a ‘GR’ cipher on the door, which appears to have been replaced. The infilled hole above the letter flap would have previously had a rasied crown motif, which was subsequently removed after Independence in 1922 and therefore representing a subtle form of cultural reclamation.