IRELAND

IRELAND / ÉIRE.

50th Anniversary of Killarney National Park / Páirc Náisiúnta Chill Airne.
Upper Lake / An Loch Uachtarach.
First stamp in a set of 2, isued on 26.02.1982.
Face value: 18 Irish penny.
Printing: Offset lithography.
Print: 3,000,000 copies.
Size: 40 x 30 mm.

Catalogs
- AFA No. 467.
- Michel No. 460.
- Scott No. 515.
- StampWorld No. 469.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 510.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 463.

Killarney National Park (Irish: Páirc Náisiúnta Chill Airne), near the town of Killarney (Cill Airne), County Kerry, was the first national park in Ireland, created in 1932; its área is 102.89 km² (39.73 sq mi). It has the only herd of red deer in Ireland and the most extensive coverage of native forest left in the country and is one of the few places in Ireland that has been continuously covered by forest since the end of the most recent ice age, about 10,000 years ago. Inside the park there are several lakes, as the Lough Leane (Loch Léin), the Muckross (Loch Mhucrois) and the Upper Lake (An Loch Uachtarach), which is the one that appears in the stamp, and mountains as Mangerton (An Mhangarta), Torc (Sliabh Torc), Shehy (Cnoic na Seithe) and Purple (Sliabh Corcra). The park was designated a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1981 and is part of a Special Area of Conservation.