Introduction Parenting challenges for the 21st century ¨Parents often complain about their children watching too much TV, or spending hours on their PC or mobile phone. Schoolwork suffers, academic standards fall Basic life skills can be difficult to develop at a young age Only a few excel at sports … and many children are put…
Introduction The Spanish dollar or ‘piece of eight’ reales counter-struck ‘5 shillings & 5 pence’ for use in trading by the Castle Comer Colliery, in Co Kilkenny, is the only silver crown-sized piece issued in Ireland by a private commercial entity. They were produced on behalf of Anne, Duchess of Ormonde – the wife of…
Proclamation of Charles II, Issued 16 August 1672 Making Current the Royal Farthings and Halfpennys and Forbidding the Use of All Others By the King. A Proclamation for making currant His Majestie’s Farthings and Half-pence of Copper, and forbidding all others to be used. Charles R. Whereas of late years several Persons and Corporations, upon…
Proclamation of Charles II, issued 5th December 1674 Enjoining the Prosecution of Persons making or uttering farthings, half-pence, or pence of brass with private stamps By the King. A Proclamation enjoining the prosecution of all such persons as shall make or utter any farthings, half-pence, or pence of brass, or utter base metals with…
The fifty pence (50p) (Irish: caoga pingin) coin was a subdivision of the Irish pound. It was introduced in Ireland on 17 February 1970 – a year before Decimal Day. It replaced the ten shilling note when decimalised, albeit it could be argued that it also replaced the by then ‘elusive’ ten shilling coin (minted in…
The twenty pence (20p) (Irish: fiche pingin) coin was a subdivision of the Irish pound. It was introduced on 30th October 1986 and was first Irish decimal coin that was of a different size to the corresponding British coin. Its last issue was in 2000, two years before Ireland withdrew its pound for the euro. It…
The tenpence (10p) (Irish: deich pingin) was a sub-division of the Irish pound. It was introduced in Ireland on Decimal Day, 15th February 1971 and re-used the design on the florin coin first produced for the Irish Free State in 1928. Due to the similarity in size and weight, many of the old florin coins remained…
Introduction Arabic, or Islamic, coins are frequently mentioned in the archaeological literature of the 19th and 20th centuries but there are few accounts that discuss these beautiful coins as a group – which probably reflects our preoccupation for coins with Latin inscriptions. They are found at many dig sites and their ‘deposition dates’ show a…
Although manufactured and used over 350 years ago, many of these tokens were issued with pretty much the same form of English as we use nowadays, with a few notable exceptions to their alphabet and spelling, e.g. The letter “U” is always represented by the letter “V”, e.g. DVBLIN There was no letter “J” in…
Dublin in the 1650’s Dublin City in the 1650’s was a very different place to that we all know and love today. It was a walled city – with heavily fortified gates at intervals along its perimeter. In 1649, with a Royalist army encamped in the grassy expanse surrounding Rathmines Castle, the Parliamentary commander of…
The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of Irish & GB coins, tokens and banknotes 