Going off tangent: British money still is weird

Ulster Bank 50 pounds note

Sometimes Britain is really weird. I was writing a post about money in Dungeons and Dragons when I remembered something odd we encountered when visiting Northern Ireland back in the 2000s: Northern Irish Bank notes.

No, not just British paper money, actual bank notes issued by private banks in the constituent part of the United Kingdom that is Northern Ireland. Scottish ones as well.

It turns out they aren’t actually legal tender anywhere in Britain (because legal definitions can be weird), but you can just pay with them in shops. It’s a bit like the Euro gonna-catch-them-all hunt for different coins, as multiple banks have the right to issue currency and do.

Somehow nobody ever had mentioned the existence of seperate paper money in Scotland and Northern Ireland to any of us. And to be fair, it’s not supposed to be seperate. They are equivalent to the Pound Sterling, but better don’t try to pay with them in England. People seem to get really pissy about that when you try. They are supposed to take them, but some places just won’t. (They can’t give them out as change)

Bank of Scotland 20 pounds note

Conversely Scotland and Northern Ireland generally accept each other’s notes.

This is stuff that nobody ever talks about somehow, a regional quirk that flies under the radar most of the times.

Danske Bank 20 pounds

By the way, one of the banks that can issue money in Northern Ireland is Danske Bank, a Danish bank based in Copenhagen. It seems they bought Northern Bank a while ago and retained their right to issue bank notes.

Another one is Bank of Ireland, which is based in Dublin. So two institutions from the EU can issue money in UK. Isn’t that interesting?

And don’t even get me started on the Manx pound, which is issued by the government of the Isle of Man (a crown dependency) and which you might get as change in Belfast. Unlike the money from the other two this one is not supposed to be interchangeable with the British pound. The Isle of Man is as Wikipedia puts it “in a one-sided de facto currency union” with the UK, meaning the pound sterling is legal tender on the island and backing its own notes with it. Some people might accept them, others don’t.

(To be fair it appears banks and post offices anywhere in Britain take them)

The Wikipedia article for the Manx Pound still talks about what will happen when the UK finally adopts the Euro. I think nobody updated this since 2006.