1/2 Groat - Henry VII

Henry VII's Irish halfgroats of this period were struck under the authority of the Dublin mint during a reign still recovering from the damage done by Lambert Simnel's 1487 rebellion, which had used Ireland as its launching point precisely because Anglo-Irish lords were hostile to Tudor rule. The Crown's response was Poynings' Law of 1494, which subordinated the Irish Parliament to Westminster — a political tightening that brought the Dublin mint under closer English oversight just as these coins were being produced.

The exceptionally low weight reflects chronic bullion shortages in late 15th-century Ireland, not debasement policy.