EAGLES, a name found very frequently in the ancient histories of Ireland, and used to express a sort of base money that was current in that kingdom in the first
Eagle first years of the reign of Edward I. that is, about the year 1272. There were, besides the eagles, lionines, rosades, and many other coins of the same sort, named according to the figures they were impressed with.
The current coin of the kingdom was at that time a composition of copper and silver, in a determined proportion, but these were so much worse than the standard proportion of that time, that they were not intrinsically worth quite half so much as the others. They were imported out of France and other foreign countries. When this prince had been a few years established on the throne, he set up mints in Ireland for the coining sufficient quantities of good money, and then decreed the use of these eagles, and other the like kinds of base coins, and made it death, with confiscation of effects, to import any more of them into the kingdom.