The winning design by Brian Gallagher was unveiled on October 13, the issue date of the stamp.
The illustration features corncrakes emerging from a long meadow, symbolising the ideal of freedom and new beginnings. An old tower house with a frayed tricolour depicts the difficult, long road to some form of independence. A crack running down the tower house hints at signs of schism of the Civil War and alludes to the division between nationalism and unionism. The original black and white scraperboard artwork has two colours, green and orange, added digitally.