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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 3514341, member: 57463&quot;]IRELAND&#039;S POET LAUREATE by Michael Marotta (from ANA &quot;Money Talks&quot; Script #901)</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Our coins must pitch and spin to please the gambler, and pack into rolls to please the banker.&quot; Those were the words of Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats. Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 and was regarded as the greatest poet of his time. He was also in charge of the committee that designed Ireland&#039;s coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yeats was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865. At that time Ireland was completely under the control of England. While working in England, Yeats joined other Irish patriots who eventually won independence for the Emerald Isle. A world-renown playwright and poet, Yeats was elected to the Irish Senate. He chaired the committee that chose the designs for the coins of the new Irish Free State.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yeats had seen classical Greek coins while studying and writing in Italy during the late 1800s. He arranged for all of the artists on this project to receive ancient Hellenistic coins, so they could see for themselves the powerful images he wanted to bring to Ireland&#039;s coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>For over seventy years, Ireland&#039;s coins changed little from the winning designs of Percy Metcalf, a young sculptor recommended by the British School in Rome and selected by Yeats&#039; committee. The horse, bull, salmon, hound and other animals of Ireland&#039;s eight circulating coins were all joined by a common symbol of Ireland&#039;s poetic tradition: the Celtic harp.</p><p><br /></p><p>William Yeats died on January 28, 1939, at the age of 73.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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