Ireland 6 pence 1968 - Irish Wolfhound

The coin's story

The sixpence, called reul in Irish (a name derived from the Spanish real), was worth half a shilling. It belongs to the “Barnyard series”, the animal series designed by the English sculptor Percy Metcalfe for the first coinage of independent Ireland in 1928. The specifications required an Irish Wolfhound, the great emblematic hunting dog of the country. Some have seen in it Master McGrath, a famous racing greyhound from County Waterford, but nothing confirms this. First struck in nickel, a very hard-wearing coin, it changed in 1942 to copper-nickel, nickel having become too expensive. It was planned to keep it in circulation after decimalisation with a value of 2½ new pence, as in the United Kingdom: the Central Bank of Ireland therefore continued to have it struck until 1969, alongside the new decimal coins.