The famous Irish postcard, souvenir and gift group, John Hinde, is the latest well-known Irish firm to tip into the red with a pre-tax loss of €651,000 for 2008, reversing a previous year profit of €503,000.

The company, named after English photographer John Wilfrid Hinde, who took iconic pictures of the Irish countryside, experienced a sharp fall in sales from €21.4m down to €17.5m. The company, John Hinde International Ltd, now has shareholders' funds of €4m, down from €5.7m the year before.

The postcards popularised by Hinde are said by cultural critics to speak of a hidden Ireland that no longer bears any relation to a modern European state. However the accounts indicated that despite plunging sales, buyers overseas still remain fans of the company's famous items.

The company was founded by Hinde in 1956 and sells a range of gifts and souvenirs with much of the product line relating to countryside scenes and Celtic imagery.

The US is now its main market, with 2008 revenues from this segment amounting to €7.5m, approximately twice the size of sales in Ireland. The UK also remains a major market for the firm, the accounts show, with sales there amounting to €3.5m.

However, the UK was the source of the biggest revenue drops, with the previous year's revenues totalling €6.4m. Sales in Ireland also slid, but by a lesser margin than in the UK. The company has started to develop some new markets for its product line, with 2008 seeing the first sales in Canada. However European sales fell sharply during the year.

The company had 95 staff in 2008, down from 105, with aggregate payroll costs amounting to €3.7m, sharply down from €4.5m in the previous year. According to the accounts, the company's sales and market area has experienced the biggest reductions in staffing, from 45 to 31.

The company spent €311,000 on director's emoluments and fees during the year, which was broadly unchanged on the previous year.