The devaluation of 1460 and the origins of the Irish pound

Abstract

The Irish parliament which met at Drogheda in 1460 is best known for its legislative declaration of its own sovereignty Although this was subsequently abrogated by Poynings’ law, the 1460 parliament effected one lasting change, to which little attention has been given: it established a separate Irish currency for the first time and in so doing created an institution which with varying visibility and value was to last until 1826 — the Irish pound.Before 1460 an Irish coinage existed. This was, however, merely a local minting to a common bullion standard which applied in England and Ireland since the first Irish minting under King John at the very beginning of the thirteenth century. Considerable historical attention of a numismatic bent has been paid to the coinages issued under the Normans. It has been concentrated in the main on the more or less mechanical questions of where, how many and by whom coins were issued. Wider analysis has been almost entirely political or related to the problems of the exchequer — mintings in place and in quantity being indicators of Norman influence and of the cost of such administration as existed in medieval Ireland.