Over the years it has been the practice of the Post Office to invite submissions for possible stamp designs from artists, designers and printers. The successful design goes on to become an issued stamp but many of the unadopted designs are of considerable artistic and historical interest. The An Post Museum & Archive (APMA) holds some of these submissions and a selection has been scanned and shared here via the DRI platform. The work of some prominent artists is represented alongside that of less well-known figures.

Following Irish independence in 1922, the Post Office issued stamps that replaced the British stamps which had been in use throughout Ireland since 1840. A public competition was held in 1922 to select designs which might be used on the new set of permanent or "definitive" Irish stamps. Subsequently, the Post Office also sought designs for special or "commemorative" stamps issued to honour particular people and events. An international competition, won by the Munich designer, Heinrich Gerl, sought fresh artistic inspiration for Ireland's new "definitive" stamps which appeared from 1968 onwards.

In more recent years, technological changes have led to the increased use of computer-aided design and photographic imagery but artistic expression, however generated, remains an important aspect of Irish stamp design and the stamps themselves continue to be silent ambassadors of Irish culture and character.