Coins of Ireland
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Irish coins have been issued by a variety of local and national authorities, the ancient provincial Kings and
History
Hiberno-Norse coins
Hiberno-Norse coins were first produced in
Following the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 the Hiberno-Norse coinage ceased following this pattern and reverted to one of its earlier designs—the so-called 'long cross' type. Coins of this general design (with occasional new designs incorporated briefly from other English and European issues) were struck in decreasing quality over a period of more than 100 years. By the end of the series the coins had become illegible and debased, and were too thin to serve for practical commerce.
All the coins produced were the penny denomination. They were initially produced at the penny standard (i.e. one pennyweight or 1/240th of a pound of silver) but the later pieces are both debased and lightweight.
Baronial coins of Ulster
These coins were issued by Baron John de Courcy, Earl of Ulster.
Regal hammered coinage
The coins which followed the 1169–75 Norman conquest (farthings, halfpennies and pennies) were minted to the same standard as those of England. A chief purpose of these coins was to provide a means for the export of silver from Ireland.
Later pieces followed the standard of England until 1460 when a lower, Irish standard was introduced with coins weighing ¾ of their English counterparts. This coincided with the introduction of a larger denomination, the
In 1561,
Early milled regal coinage
Copper halfpennies were struck between 1680 and 1689, during the reigns of King Charles II (1660–85) and King James II (1685–88).
Civil War coinage of 1689–91
These coins were struck by the deposed King
A second issue of emergency coinage, consisting of farthings and halfpennies, was issued in 1691 for use in Limerick.
Wood's Halfpence
William Wood was authorised in 1722 to produce up to 360 tons of halfpence and farthings for Ireland at 30 pence to the pound over a period of fourteen years for an annual fee of £800 paid to the king. These coins were unpopular in Ireland, largely due to Jonathan Swift's polemical Drapier's Letters, and Wood lost his patent though compensated with a pension.
Later Crown coinage
After the end of the English Civil War, copper farthings and halfpennies resumed production, and pennies were added in 1805. In 1804, the
The 1822–23 issue marked the last appearance of the symbol of a crowned harp, which represented the
Coins of the Irish State after 1921
Following the
Ireland and the United Kingdom decimalised their currencies in 1971, and parity between the two currencies continued until Ireland joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1979. An exchange rate between the Irish pound and the pound sterling was established on 30 March 1979. The smaller denomination British 1p and 2p coins continued to be unofficially interchangeable with the Irish coins until the euro was introduced in 2002, partly due to their identical size and shape. Ireland adopted the euro as its currency along with most of its EU partners on 1 January 2002. The national side of the
Coins of Northern Ireland
These coins are not unique to Northern Ireland and circulate through the entire United Kingdom and other sterling area countries.
The Giant's Causeway appeared on two five-pound coins in 2012; these are commemorative coins and are rarely circulated.