An Post’s latest St Patrick’s Day stamp design featuring cartoon snakes is a troubling sign of the country’s increasing secularisation, according to one Irish priest expert in stamps.

In a letter to The Irish Catholic, Fr Patrick Moore PP of Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath, lamented that despite St Patrick “driving out the snakes of pre-Christian paganism, here, they reappear, in the form of our annual An Post contribution for the feast—or rather now, the festival—of St Patrick’s Day, as they call it.”

A longtime member of An Post’s Philatelic section—the division dedicated to the study of stamps—Fr Moore expressed disappointment that major Catholic figures like St Oliver Plunkett, Ven. Matt Talbot, and St Laurence O’Toole have been overlooked in recent commemorative stamp releases.

Fr Moore pointed to what he sees as a broader cultural shift, similar to the recent push to equate St Brigid with a pre-Christian Celtic goddess. “The very valuable stamp commemorations should be holistic and not narrow-minded,” he urged, calling for a more balanced representation of Ireland’s history.