€10million coughed up on Easter treats this week

SOME €10million is estimated to have been spent in Ireland this week on Easter eggs in a tradition that started out roughly 735 years ago.

- BY SEAN MURPHY

Britain's King Edward I bought 450 eggs in 1290 for them to be decorated in gold leaf and distributed among the royal entourage for Easter.

It was over two centuries later in the 1500s that King Henry VIII is said to have received an egg in a silver case from the Pope.