20 Pounds Bank of Ireland

Bank of Ireland's Belfast branch operated as a separate note-issuing authority from the Dublin head office under the Currency Act (Northern Ireland) 1927, which established a distinct legal framework for banknote issue in the newly partitioned North. This note falls squarely within the early years of that arrangement, when Belfast-issued Bank of Ireland notes circulated alongside those of several competing Ulster banks — all legally valid but each fiercely regional in practice.

The 1929 date places it just ahead of the economic shock that would suppress demand for high-denomination notes throughout the 1930s. Twenty-pound notes from this period saw very limited everyday use; they were instruments of commercial settlement, not retail trade.