Vth Column

It's more than 100 years since the foundation of The State = Saorstát Éireann which didn't formally sever the last umbilical to the UK until Easter 1949 when the The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 came into force. The Free State / Saorstát had been minting its own coins since 1922 but they were the same size and denomination as British coins and the latter circulated freely in Ireland, at face value. UK paper money was also accepted in Ireland when I was student in the 1970s; although not vice versa - you'd get very peculiar looks if you proffered £5 Irish in middle England. 

One of the neatest buildings in Trinity College Dublin is the 1937 Reading Room which was commissioned in 1919 to commemorate the 491 students and staff who had perished [in uniform!] in The Great War. The Hall of Honour atrium wasn't finished until 1928. 'NIKH' is inscribed in foot-high letters on the outside portico although 'Victory' rang kinda hollow for the 491 and their grieving families. The functional rest of the building - serving as a Post-Graduate reading room - wasn't finally completed until 1937! 

One of the neatest features of the design is that the massive hardwood doors are studded with bronze pennies [as L]. I've always believed that these pennies all bore the date 1937 because that would be a cool nod to future post-armageddon archaeologists. Similar to the practice of putting coins under the foundation stone of many public buildings when they are a-building. Most recently, in August, I urged Gdau.I and Gdau.II to check out the doors when they went on a city break with their aunties. They were unimpressed! So the next time I had idle minutes in TCD, I went to look at the disappointment myself.

And WTF! There are no Irish pennies, let alone 1937 pennies at all at all. Rather they all sport the profile of GEORGIVS V DEI GRA: BRITT: OMN: REX FID: DEF: IND: IMP: = George V by the Grace of God, King of all the British territories, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India . . . who died in 1936. I was initially outraged that Trinity was acting up as a Fifth Column for Empire long after that ship had sailed from the 26 counties. For a Republic, there's a lot of this historical inertia about: Royal Irish Academy, Royal Dublin Society, Royal College of Surgeons, Royal Irish Yacht Club. But a moment's thought revealed that the doors were probably completed for the 1928 structure and, however bamboozled, those remembered inside died for 'King & Country'. And no, not Brian Ború (941-1014 Clontarf), High King of Ireland.