Kerryman Richard Cantillon was born in the 1680s to a Hiberno-Norman landowning family from Ballyheigue. The family fought alongside James II, to whom they were related, during the Williamite War and were consequently dispossessed of their lands. Nevertheless, Cantillon’s landed gentry origins were to leave a lasting impression on his work, and his experiences in … Read more
Written in French in the late 1720s, though not published until 1755, long after his death, Cantillon’s Essai contains the first known use of the term entrepreneur and is where he became the first economist to develop formally the now fundamental insights concerning the role entrepreneurship plays in the economy. Cantillon’s writing portrays entrepreneurs as … Read more
Since the Norman invasion, a chain of self-governing municipal boroughs had been established in Ireland, chiefly in the more heavily settled provinces of Munster and Leinster. A municipal borough or borough corporation was a self-governing town and the granting of this privilege was known as incorporation, which involved receiving a charter or written constitution (generally … Read more
If Benjamin Franklin’s axiom assures us of the certainty of two things only—death and taxes—the Irish can add further to that list, and indeed link the two. For what was an Irish death without an Irish wake, and what was an Irish wake without an abundance of tobacco? And what were such proportions of consumption … Read more
The Theatre Royal’s short 27-year lifespan (it opened in 1935) is testimony to the rapid social change and revolution in entertainment that took place during the last century. The same site had played host to the ‘first’ Theatre Royal (burned down in 1880), the Leinster Hall (built in 1886) and the Theatre Royal Hippodrome (demolished in 1934).