Mayo town now accepting old Irish punts

You'd want check the back of the sofa for this one as a town in Mayo has decided to start accepting our old currency as legal tender.

Now you don’t need Dr Marty McFly and his time travelling DeLoran in order to spend your punts, which went out of use ten years ago (in 2002). Instead, all you have to do to spend the currency of your childhood (or late teens as it were) is to head out wesht to Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo where shopkeepers are now accepting old punts.

But where exactly are you going to find these old punts? Well, as we said, you can check the back of the sofa for some loose change, or maybe you used a £20 note as a bookmark back in the day? Either way, the punts are out there…

The Central Bank estimates that more than £300m Irish punts are still out there. So it’s just a matter of finding them.

Shoppers can spend their old punts in over 40 businesses throughout the town of Ballinrobe and they will be offered a handsome exchange rate of £1 for €1.20. Your change will be given out in vouchers in case you’re wondering.

Now it’s not the first time this Spend Your Punts Campaign has hit the land. A similar campaign was run in Clones, Co. Monaghan recently, which you can read about here.

Right, to the back of the sofa we go…