1/2 Penny Wicklow - Cronebane / Miners Arms

The Associated Irish Mine Company operated the Cronebane copper mines in County Wicklow, one of the most productive copper workings in late eighteenth-century Ireland. The token was issued to address a chronic shortage of small change — a problem endemic across Britain and Ireland during this period, when the Royal Mint had effectively abandoned copper coinage for decades. Private traders and industrial concerns filled the void themselves.

Dalton & Hamer 51 is among the more frequently encountered Wicklow pieces, suggesting the mine issued in substantial quantity. The Cronebane series was struck in Birmingham, almost certainly by Boulton's Soho Mint.