Ireland 3 pence 1934 - Irish Free State - Hare

The coin's story

The threepence, called leath reul in Irish, that is “half reul” (the reul being the sixpence), was worth a quarter of a shilling. It belongs to the first coinage of independent Ireland, launched in 1928 in the name of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann), with the animal series designed by the English sculptor Percy Metcalfe and chosen by a committee chaired by the poet W. B. Yeats. The Irish hare adorns its reverse. Unlike the other Irish coins, it did not follow its British equivalent: Ireland never adopted the twelve-sided brass threepence used in the United Kingdom from 1937. First struck in pure nickel, very hard-wearing, it changed to copper-nickel in 1942 with the same weight and size. This SAORSTÁT ÉIREANN version was struck only in 1928, 1933, 1934 and 1935. The coin ceased to be legal tender on 31 December 1971, after decimalisation, its hare even nearly returned in 1990 on the 2 pence coin, a project abandoned with the arrival of the euro.