1/2 Phingin

Ireland's halfpenny was part of the Saorstát Éireann coinage introduced in 1928 — the first sovereign Irish coinage since the medieval period. The designs were selected following a committee chaired by W.B. Yeats, who took the assignment with unusual seriousness and recruited some of Europe's leading medallists to submit work. Percy Metcalfe's animal series won out, and the Royal Mint in London struck the coins under contract, an arrangement that quietly persisted for years despite the political awkwardness of the newly independent state.