Coins of Ireland

The first coins in Ireland were minted in 997 during the reign of King Sitrick Silkbeard. In our review, we will consider coins issued in the first half of the 20th century.

 

A bit of history in the beginning. Revolutionary unrest in continental Europe at the beginning of the 20th century reached the British Isles. The territories of Ireland under the rule of the British Crown wished to gain independence. In 1916, the "Easter" uprising broke out, brutally suppressed. In 1919 , the Soviet Limerick Republic was even organized in the territories of the county of the same name, which lasted two weeks. At the same time, the newly created terrorist organization Irish Republican Army enters an active phase of hostilities with government forces and police, destroys local pro-British politicians. A civil war broke out in Ireland.

 

In 1921, the British government made concessions - Ireland received the status of dominion within the British Empire. This was the first step towards Irish independence. A year later, on December 1922, the creation of the Irish Free State was announced. The next day, six northeastern counties (Northern Ireland) announced their desire to remain part of the UK.

 

Immediately after the proclamation of Ireland as a "Free State," the question arose of creating its own currency. The Irish government took this issue very seriously - a committee was organized, headed by Senator W. B. Yeats, who was to determine the basic principles for the formation of the design of the future national currency. It was decided that the symbol of Ireland from the 13th century - the Celtic harp - would be present on the obverse of all issued coins without fail, and the inscriptions would be in Irish in Gaelic script.

 

 

It was also decided to abandon the image on coins of personalities and religious symbols in order to avoid disagreements in society. Since Ireland is for the most part an agrarian country, it was decided to display animals and birds as images. 

 

Irish artists Jerome Connor, Albert Power and Oliver Sheppard, as well as foreigners Paul Manship, Percy Metcalf, Karl Milles and Publio Morbiducci were invited to develop the design of the coins. For impartiality when choosing the winners of the competition, artists were forbidden to put identification marks on their models. The committee selected sketches prepared by English sculptor Percy Metcalfe.

 

 

Coinage began in 1926 at the Royal Mint in London. 

 

With 98% of Irish exports and 80% of imports coming from Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it was decided to peg the Irish currency to sterling. Therefore, the coins of Ireland had identical sizes with English coins of the same denomination. At the same time, even after the issue of their own currency, British coins had equal circulation in the territory of the Irish Free State.

 

December 12, 1928 coins were issued. The line of coins of the first issue consisted of bronze coins in denominations of ¼ pennies (Feoirling), ½ pennies (Leath Phingin) and pennies (Pingin), nickel 3 pence (Leath Reul) and 6 pence (Reul), silver shilling (Scilling), florin (Flóirín ) and ½ crowns (Leul ath Choróin) with the legend "Saorstát Éireann" (Irish Free State)

 

 

On December 29, 1937, Ireland adopted a new Constitution, according to which the Irish Free State ceases to exist. Ireland leaves the British Commonwealth of Nations, ceases to be a dominion of Great Britain and becomes a completely independent state. The name of the state changes to "Éire" (Ireland). Despite this, the Irish pound is still tied to the English.

 

In 1938, a new line of coins was put into circulation in the same composition as before, but with the changed name of the state. In addition, the image of the harp was slightly modified. 

 

 

Section 58 of the Irish Central Bank Act of 1942 allowed the replacement of pure nickel in 3p and 6p coins with a copper-nickel alloy.

 

 

In 1971, Ireland, together with Great Britain, switched to the decimal system, and since 2002 entered the Eurozone.