Irish silver hallmarks: what the crowned harp and Hibernia certify
Irish silver hallmarks rest on two devices. A crowned harp is the fineness mark, struck on sterling silver at 925 parts in a thousand and on 22 carat gold. The seated woman leaning on a harp is Hibernia, which began in 1730 as proof of duty paid and is now the office’s own mark. Both were struck at Dublin, which has been the only assay office in Ireland since 1637.
| Mark | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Crowned harp | Sterling at 925, or 22 carat gold. The fineness mark to 2002, optional since |
| Hibernia | Duty paid from 1730, and the Dublin Assay Office mark now |
| 925 in an oval | The fineness mark for sterling since 2002 |
| Date letter | The assay year, on Dublin’s own cycle since 1638 |
| Sovereign’s head | Duty paid, 1807 to 1890 |
The Dublin row, 1637 to today
| From | What the office struck |
|---|---|
| 1637 | Maker’s mark, the fineness mark and the crowned harp |
| 1638 | A date letter, changed every year |
| 25 March 1730 | Hibernia, for the duty |
| 1807 | The sovereign’s head for the duty, and Hibernia becomes the town mark |
| 1922 | The same system, under Irish law after the Free State was formed |
| 1 October 2002 | Fineness in numerals, Hibernia as the sole office mark, date letter optional |
Until 1922 Dublin worked to the same statutes as London and Edinburgh, and the Free State changed the government rather than the punches. A sovereign’s head beside Hibernia dates a piece to 1807 to 1890, when the head carried the duty.
Modern Irish marking dates from 1 October 2002. Fineness is given in numerals now, 925 in an oval surround for sterling, Hibernia goes on Irish and imported work alike, and the date letter became optional. The harp was not retired with it: the office still strikes the harp and the traditional marks for 18, 20 and 22 carat gold on request and for a charge, so a harp on a modern piece dates nothing by itself.
Hibernia changed job
The figure arrived on 25 March 1730 as a tax stamp for the duty on Irish plate. When the sovereign’s head took over the duty in 1807, Hibernia stayed in the row as the Dublin town mark, and the office now calls it the mark of the Dublin Assay Office, used on everything it hallmarks. Foreign articles took a punch of their own until 2002, a vessel called the boujet, so origin no longer shows in an Irish row.
Hibernia, Britannia and the plain harp
Hibernia is a seated woman in a hallmark row, and so is Britannia, the British mark for 958 silver. The props separate them: Hibernia leans on a harp in a tall oval punch, and Britannia holds a shield and a trident.
A row with no harp and no Hibernia, only a maker’s initials and the word STERLING (or STARLING), is Irish provincial work, from Cork or Limerick in the eighteenth century. No office tested it: the word is the maker’s own claim, and the maker’s name is what a buyer prices.
The harp itself is the last trap. An uncrowned harp is the emblem of the Irish State, which puts it on the coinage and on souvenir ware that says nothing about the metal. The fineness mark is the crowned harp, punched in a shield beside a maker’s mark and a Hibernia.
Standards a British table does not hold
Ireland marks gold at 375, 417, 585, 750, 833, 916, 990 and 999, and silver at 800, 925, 958.4 and 999. The 417 is ten carat and the 833 is twenty, and British law lists neither, so a British fineness table will not place them. Irish hallmarking carries no exemption by weight either: every article sold there is marked however light, where British law lets the smallest pieces go unmarked.
A commemorative mark fixes a piece to a year, or to a window of months.
| Commemorative mark | Struck during |
|---|---|
| The Sword of Light, for the golden jubilee of the 1916 Rising | 1966 |
| Ireland’s entry into the European Community | 1973 |
| The Company of Goldsmiths’ 350th anniversary | 1987 |
| Three castles, for the Dublin city millennium | 1988 |
| The M2 millennium mark | July 1999 to December 2000 |
| The centenary of the 1916 Rising | July 2015 to December 2016 |
| Brian Boru’s harp, for the Irish Free State centenary | July 2021 to December 2022 |
The 1966 and 1973 marks went on Irish-made gold and silver, the 1987 and 1988 marks on gold, silver and platinum. Those four and the millennium mark left jewellery and watch cases out, so a Dublin ring of 1966 carries the ordinary row.
A British date letter table will not date an Irish piece
Dublin has run its own letters since 1638, and they match neither the English and Scottish cycles nor the national letter the British offices took up in 1975. The seventeenth Dublin cycle opened on 1 January 2011 with the letter A, and the punch has changed each 1 January since. The identifier on this site carries no Irish cycle: it offers the British national letters from 1975 to any office still open, and those are not Dublin years, so do not read a year for an Irish piece from it. Take the letter to a printed Irish table. The date letters guide covers how a shield and a letter form fix a cycle.
Working an Irish row
A Dublin piece made before 1975 needs a printed Irish table and the maker’s initials together, because the letter alone fixes nothing. The Dublin Assay Office identifies the marks on any piece it struck, and the makers’ marks guide explains why the initials name whoever sent the piece in, who was not always the maker.
