Financial History Review

Table of Contents - August 2012 - Volume 19, Issue 02  

Articles

The last major Irish bank failure before 20081

Cormac Ó Grádaa1

a1 University College Dublin cormac.ograda@ucd.ie

Abstract

Until 2008, Ireland's banks had a solid reputation. Its two long-established banks could trace their origins back to the beginnings of joint-stock banking in 1825. Few banks of consequence had failed in the interim. The last such failure, the focus of this article, was that of the Munster Bank in 1885. That event tells us much about the history of Irish banking before recent events.

(Received March 09 2011)

(Revised July 01 2011)

(Accepted September 09 2011)

(Online publication January 18 2012)

Keywords

  • lender of last resort;
  • banking;
  • Ireland;
  • economic history

JEL classification

  • N;
  • N20;
  • G21

Footnotes

1 Earlier versions of this article were presented at University College Dublin and Rutgers University. The helpful comments of Michael Bordo, Hugh Rockoff, Eugene White and two referees are gratefully acknowledged. I am grateful to Mary Lambkin and to Desmond Norton for allowing me to cite unpublished material in their possession. The citations from the Court of Directors of the Bank of Ireland are taken from the bank's archives. The article builds on Ó Gráda (2002).