The imminent arrival of the euro has been forcing Edwardian beauty Lady Lavery back into circulation - almost 25 years after being banished from the face of the Republic's bank notes.
Notes featuring the delicate features of the "beautiful Irish type" have been resurfacing with relative frequency in the past two months, according to Central Bank records, with 7,600 Lady Lavery notes turning up in Dame Street in the course of November.
This was almost a 50 per cent increase on the previous month and, when the first 11 months of the year are taken together, more than 40 per cent more notes have come back than in the previous year.
It is suspected that the development is a direct response to a general effort to call back stashed notes and coins before they lose legal tender status next February, a Central Bank spokesman said.
Another possibility, however, is that holders of undeclared currency are quietly surrendering older notes so that they can be converted into hard assets, making the cash impossible to trace.
Lady Lavery, the wife of artist Sir John Lavery, featured on Irish notes between 1928 and 1979, finally being replaced by a Celtic design that lasted until the early 1990s. These notes have also started to reappear with increased frequency in the past few months. Between the two designs, the Central Bank's balance sheet shows that notes worth €125 million (£98 million) are still at large, perhaps because people hoarded souvenir notes or simply lost track of currency in their possession.
The Bank expects to see more of these notes turning up in coming months. Meanwhile, more enterprising holders of old Irish notes have tried to adopt an alternative approach to liquidating their hoarded currency.
Mr Ian Whyte, currency expert and director of Whyte's Auctioneers in Dublin, says he has been "inundated with phone calls" from people inquiring about the collector value of notes and coins in past months.
The majority of notes recently inspected by Mr Whyte have, unfortunately, not achieved the high standards expected by collectors.
"They're in such bad condition that they're only really worth putting in the bank. In fact, they'll have lost out on a bit of their purchasing power by hoarding them," he says.
Moreover, the further bad news is that the changeover has prompted a fall in the value of old notes, such is the extent of their increased circulation.
"It's had a slightly bad effect on the value because there are so many on the market," Mr Whyte says. Lady Lavery's predecessor, the "Ploughman" note series, comprises the most valuable of the Irish State notes, he adds.
A £1 note from this series could raise as much as £100, depending on condition, while a £5 note could attract £200.
Lady Lavery, alas, will not produce such impressive results. In fact, says Mr Whyte, those in possession of notes from this series may do well to hold on to their stash until they become rarer.
"If they're in really, really nice condition, I'd say, 'Hold on'. If not, 'Change them for euro'."
For the record, Mr Whyte advises that notes will be preserved most effectively in dry and cool places, preferably in a specially designed bank note album.
