1 Pound Provincial Bank of Ireland

The Provincial Bank of Ireland was founded in 1825 specifically to extend branch banking across rural Ireland at a time when the Bank of Ireland's charter restricted it to Dublin. By the 1950s the bank had operated continuously for well over a century, but its days as an independent issuer were numbered — it merged with the Royal Bank of Ireland in 1966 to form Allied Irish Banks, ending the Provincial's note-issuing history entirely.

De La Rue's production of this series was routine work for a printer that handled much of Ireland's commercial bank output during this period. The watermark remains the sole mechanical security feature on a note that was already approaching the end of its issuing lifespan when the later dates in this range were struck.