{"id":309081,"date":"2025-08-01T11:13:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T11:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309081\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T11:13:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T11:13:15","slug":"tv-aerial-in-daniel-oconnell-stamp-is-a-visual-signal-to-the-modern-age-not-ai-says-an-post-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309081\/","title":{"rendered":"TV aerial in Daniel O\u2019Connell stamp is a \u2018visual signal\u2019 to the modern age, not AI, says An Post \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">TV aerials were not common in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/daniel-o-connell\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/daniel-o-connell\/\">Daniel O\u2019Connell<\/a>\u2019s day so what\u2019s one doing in a new postage stamp commemorating the 250th anniversary of his birth?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/an-post\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/an-post\/\">An Post<\/a> stamp depicts the Liberator\u2019s triumphant procession in a gilded chariot through Dublin following his release from Richmond prison in 1844.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Unusually, in the top-right corner of the stamp, on a chimney in the panorama of 19th-century Dublin, is a TV aerial, many decades before the invention of the television.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Some members of the public contacted An Post following the stamp\u2019s launch to complain the aerial might be a product of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/artificial-intelligence\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/artificial-intelligence\/\">artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI) given that AI-generated images often include historical or physical anomalies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">Not so, says David Rooney, one of the country\u2019s best-known graphic artists, who created the image.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">\u201cThe inclusion of the tiny TV aerial was of course deliberate and not a mistake on my part,\u201d he told The Irish Times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">\u201cI thought it would be interesting to allude to and imagine the impact the great communicator Daniel O\u2019Connell\u2019s mass rallies would have had if they had been televised. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">\u201cI was greatly taken by the fantastical and surreal elements in his pageantry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">The picture was created using Rooney\u2019s preferred technique of scraperboard before being digitally scanned and coloured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">\u201cI\u2019ve been almost 40 years working as a professional illustrator and I\u2019ve often included surreal elements in my work,\u201d said Rooney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">\u201cI guess in the AI environment we now inhabit these may be misread. I put a lot work into these stamps, which I\u2019m very proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">The world of illustration has been disrupted by the arrival of AI, with many artists losing income amid widespread protests against its use by publishers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">An Post said Rooney\u2019s stamp included \u201ca \u2018visual signal\u2019 to link to the very modern, global range and impact of O\u2019Connell\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">The Liberator\u2019s methods of communications were \u201cthoroughly modern \u2013 hence the inclusion of a sort of anachronism to link those very points\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">An Post noted that the company was \u201cone of the most prolific and constant commissions of Irish art and design.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall\">\u201cWe do not use AI in stamp design.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TV aerials were not common in Daniel O\u2019Connell\u2019s day so what\u2019s one doing in a new postage stamp&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,113139,1942,113140,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-309081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-an-post","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-daniel-o-connell","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114953217804012865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}