100 Years of Irish Parliament
The first meeting of Dáil Éireann was held in the Mansion House in 1919 and it was the beginning of a long journey of law-making and politics that shaped our country into the progressive democracy it is today.
Governance of our fledgling nation began on the 21st of January and was conducted entirely in the Irish language to mark the symbolic nature of the meeting. The design here commemorates just that. The large ‘Round Room’ of the Mansion House arcs above the vast congregation of the nation’s first elected Dáil and the words “An Chéad Dáil, 1919” are scribed in a traditional uncial font.
The design was minted as a special €100 collector’s piece and also adapted as a €2 circulation coin.
Pictured at the launch, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Nial Ring, Minister Regina Doherty, Governor of the Central Bank, Philip Lane, Minister for Finance, Paschal O’Donoghue.
€2 Circulation Coin (click to enlarge)
““With this coin we remember the first elected representatives of Dáil Éireann and the foundations they laid that started us on our journey to becoming the confident, inclusive, modern, outward-looking country we are today.””