The South Sea Bubble and Ireland

The Glorious Revolution is credited with ushering in a greater role for parliament in approving and appropriating taxes, the establishment of the Bank of England as well as of private banks, and investment in paper stocks. If a formidable fiscal-military state gradually emerged, it was attended by periodic crises, notably the South Sea Bubble. Ideas about the English developments pioneered by Peter Dickson, John Brewer and Julian Hoppit are being applied to Ireland and Scotland, in order to assess how much each kingdom contributed and profited. Patrick Walsh, author of this present book, has been to the fore in the latter investigations. Already, he has reconstructed the career of William Conolly, the most successful politician in Ireland during the early eighteenth century. Since Conolly’s supremacy rested heavily on his command over the revenue service in Dublin, Dr Walsh has an enviable understanding of the complexities of Irish public finance. Utilising, too, his familiarity with an intimidating bulk of documentation (unusual riches for historians of Ireland before 1800), he has turned to the Irish (and Scottish) involvement in the South Sea Bubble. The resulting study falls into two parts, each of great novelty and value

Economic history · Economics · Investment (military · Irish · Mercantilism · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Revenue · State (computer science · Finance · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Philosophy