heads or harps

English

Alternative forms

• head or harp (obsolete)

Etymology

Head and harp of an 1805 Irish penny

Copper coins minted in Georgian Ireland had the head of the British monarch on the obverse and the Irish harp on the reverse. The phrase "heads or harps" remained common even after 1823, when Irish minting ceased and only British coinage circulated; it was still current when the Irish Free State restored the harp on its newly introduced coins in 1927.

Noun

heads or harps (uncountable)

1. (Ireland) heads or tails
   • 1802, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Maria Edgeworth, “The Dublin Shoeblack”, in Essay on Irish Bulls‎^[7], London: J. Johnson, page 128:

     A quarrel happened between two shoeblacks, who were playing at what in England is called pitch farthing, or heads and tails, and in Ireland, head or harp.

   • 1848, Anthony Trollope, “XVI Brien Boru”, in The Kellys and the O'Kellys‎^[8], volume II, London: Henry Colburne, page 55:

     ...he took out his purse, and, extracting half-a-crown, threw it up to the ceiling, saying,
     “Well, Dot—head or harp? If you’re right, you have them.”
     “Harp,” cried Dot.
     They both examined the coin. “They’re yours,” said Frank, with much solemnity...

   • 1889 October 19, W. B. Yeats, “William Carleton (review of The Red-Haired Man’s Wife)”, in The Scots Observer‎^[9], volume 2, number 48, page 608:

     There was a family of peasants who never could make up their minds; they decided everything by a toss-up. The head of the family had settled the amount of dowry he got with his wife by ‘heads or harps,’ and when he died he left his land to be tossed for by his two sons.

   • 1905 August 17, “The News-Vendor”, in The Weekly Irish Times‎^[10], Dublin, page 6:

     He dearly loves to smoke cigarettes and many of them, and he has an insurmountable weakness for the recondite mysteries of "Pitch and Toss," and when he has mastered the intricacies of the game, can foretell by repeatedly turning a copper in his hand while the stakes are revolving in the air whether they will settle on the ground heads or harps up.

   • 1972, Brian Cleeve, Cry of morning‎^[11], London: Corgi, →ISBN, page 210:

     He looked up as they came nearer. ‘Hey, lads. Lookin’ for a game?’
     ‘A game?’ Victor said.
     ‘Pitch an’ toss.’ He spun the ha’penny, watched it fall between two broken pieces of brick and cocked his foxy head at the two boys. ‘Heads or harps?’
     ‘Harps,’ Victor said.
     ‘You win,’ Denis Doyle said.

   • 1988, Billy Roche, “A Handful of Stars; Act 1; Scene 1”, in The Wexford Trilogy‎^[12], →ISBN:

     JIMMY. Heads or harps?
     TONY. Heads.
     JIMMY. (Tosses the coin onto the back of his hand.) Hard luck. Ha ha ha.

   • 2019 September 16, Tom Swift, “Winging It”, in RTÉ Culture‎^[13], RTÉ:

     Christina twirls on straps like a spinning coin that hasn’t decided if it will land on heads or harps.

   • 2021 November 11, Dermot Crean, “Toss Of A Coin To Decide Venue For Kerins O’Rahillys V Dr Crokes”, in Tralee Today‎^[14]:

     “HEADS or harps?”

     That’s what Kerins O’Rahillys and Dr Crokes face later today, as a toss of a coin will decide the whether it will be Austin Stack Park or Fitzgerald Stadium for their Garveys Kerry SFC semi-final clash on Sunday week at 2.30pm.

Usage notes

Although technically the harp was on the obverse side of post-1927 coins, the non-harp (reverse) side remained "heads" in popular usage.