AN IRISH COINAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19389, 26 July 1926, Page 12

AN IRISH COINAGE.

MINTAGE OF THE PAST.

" O'REILLY'S MONEY."

SOME EARLY HISTORY RECALLED

BY T. WALSH.

The announcement that the Irish Free State Government has set up a committee of experts to select designs for an Irish coinage revives interest in the last native coinage, memories of which are preserved, in story and history, as " O'Reilly's

money." Coins were minted in Ireland, Scotland and England before the City of Rome was founded. In the Isle of Destiny, Inisfail, the high king or super king controlled the coinage, though many of the lesser kings descended from earlier high kings, maintained some of their former status by also minting money that was accepted in their own realms. The last of the Irish princely families to submit to Norman and Anglo-Norman influences were the O'Reillys and as such their money was the last of the Irish money to remain in circulation. The ancient clanship of Breffny-O'Reilly was transferred from the then unsubjugated Connacht to Ulster by the English Government when it extended north of the Palo (the sphere around Dublin). Long before the Pale was formed the * O'Reillys were minting money and they maintained their " minthouse" through the centuries following the invasion. Fifteenth Century Penalties. In the year 1585, when the last chieftain of the clan was inaugurated' the artistic coins of the O'Reillys were the currency in Breffny and surrouftding country. At that, time the O'Reilly clan was the spearpoint of Irish resistance to invasion and naturally it wielded immense influence; making its own laws and enforcing them. The history of the Parliament of the Pale of those days contains numerous references to the enactments forbidding those who lived within the area subject to its influence to carry on commercial transactions with the assistance of O'Reilly's money. These prohibitions of the fifteenth century had the sanction of heavy penalties, but those of similar nature in the next century had still heavier sanctions, and proclamations were issued denouncing the use of the money of the native princes. The " Annals of Cavan" relate how Phillip Mac Hugh O'Reilly, the second son of the then chief, was penalised for allowing the use of this money. According to tradition, the last of the clan to mint coin was a nephew of this Phillip-Mulmore Mac Edmund O'Reilly, sheriff of Cavan. He was a soldier of considerable fame and led the insurrectionary movement in Cavan and seized Farnham Castle. He died in Louvaia in 1657.

In 184 ft a man digging turf near the famous " Fingerstones" on Shantamon Mountain discovered some of the ancient coins of the O'Reillys. The whereabouts of the coins cannot now he ascertained, but there still live men who heard descriptions of the coins from those who actually saw them. Some .of the coins bore the date 1522 and were slightly larger than a modeyi sixpence; probably thev were specimens of tho " O'Reilly eigfitpence" that figures even yet in tho stories related by tho firesides in the houses of the peasants. In the early nineties of last century a beautiful silver brooch was also found in the locality where the coins had been found. Legend has it that seven large " mugfuls" of coins of the O'Reilly's and a Crock of gold lie hidden hard by the rare vitrified fort on Shantamon. Examples of Celtic Ait,. Tradition and history both praservo for us accounts of the designs of th© coins and describe them as being engraved with designs of extreme beauty; one of the large silver coins bore the impress of tho severed " right hand" that adorns the crest of the clan, and all of them were exquisite examples of Celtic art. In the* year 1545 there was bitter fighting between the O'Reillys and a neighbouring clan, the O'Farrells. It is traditionally recorded that the iiivader— Buidhe O'Farrel! —took a prey of 100 cows, a mugful of silver coins and 20 "Niello" tokens. These tokens have vanished, but the memory of them is still preserved by the peasants. They were about the size of a crown pieca and twice the thickness. The frame was of silver with a Niello, or enamel centre piece, insert. An inscription " Fortitudine et Prudentia" wits engraved round the silver on the flat face of the token. The last specimen of one of these tokens was the property of the Archbishop O'Reilly of Armagh, in the 18th century, who was descended from the Cavan O'Reillys, though born in Dublin. He always carried the token on his watch guard. The days of the princely O'Reillys, their coins and their tokens, have long since disappeared and only the mosscovered stones of mined battlements and the traditions of the people remain to indicate their past glory and their triumphs. It may be that m the production of the new coinage some of the ancient emblems and beauty of historic Celtic art shall be used again.