Coins of the Republic of Ireland
In 1979, Ireland joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Irish pound left parity with sterling; coin designs introduced after this differed between the two countries.
John of England was among the first Anglo-Norman monarchs to mint coins in Ireland; these were farthings, halfpennies and pennies.
In 1926, the Irish government created a committee chaired by Senator William Butler Yeats to determine designs suitable for the coins.
The other members of the committee were Thomas Bodkin, Dermot O'Brien, Lucius O'Callaghan and Barry Egan.
The committee decided that people associated with "the present time" should not feature in any designs, no doubt [citation needed] due to the political divisions which had led to the Irish Civil War.
Agriculture was essential to the economy of Ireland and this theme was chosen for the coins, which used designs featuring animals and birds.
Finally, the harp and the words Saorstát Éireann ("Irish Free State") were chosen for the obverse side of coins.
The Central Bank Act, 1942 Section 58[2] allowed pure nickel to be substituted with a cupro-nickel alloy.
In 1978, the Central Bank of Ireland opened the Currency Centre at Sandyford in Dublin for the production of coins and banknotes.
The coins issued under the Decimal Currency Acts were finally withdrawn from circulation in 2002 by the Irish Pound Coinage (Calling In) (No.
The introduction of the euro was overseen by the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland which was a special agency created on May 5, 1998 by the Minister for Finance; this agency provided a wide variety of information including converters, training packs, images and public advertisements on a wide range of media to ensure a successful transfer.
Since then a number of commemorative coins have been issued including one for the accession of the ten new European Union member states on 1 May 2004.
For the first time since it adopted the euro, Ireland will issue on its own, in 2016, a €2 commemorative coin in honour of the hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1916.
In 2013, the Central Bank of Ireland issued a silver €10 commemorative coin in honour of James Joyce that misquoted a famous line from his masterwork Ulysses[9] despite being warned on at least two occasions by the Department of Finance over difficulties with copyright and design.
[10] All pre-euro Irish coins may be exchanged for their equivalent in euros any weekday morning at the Central Bank in Dublin.
