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Henry VI, 2nd Reign, Cork - Obverse: hENRIC DEI GRA DNS iBERNIE (over EDWARDVS), reverse: POSVI D|EV AD|IVTOR* MEVM // CIVI | TAS | CORC | AGIE, with O over miss-punched A. A metal detecting find. This coin (the third subsequently identified following research in Irish Museums), is struck in the name of Henry VI, and would seem to prove beyond reasonable doubt that coinage was struck at Cork in his name around his brief regaining the English throne between October 1470 and April 1471. This short-lived coinage would appear to be largely thanks to the support of local factions for the Lancastrian cause in an otherwise Yorkist controlled Ireland. The die has been re-appropriated from Edward IV's 'heavy coinage' issues with HENRIC being punched over EDWARDVS which as far as present research allows has only been noted in one other instance in the entire Anglo-Irish corpus, this being for an issue of Drogheda during the reign of Richard III! To be noted in the forthcoming revision to the Coinage of Ireland and Scotland and the Channel Islands.
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