ABSTRACT
The Bank of Ireland was created by Act of the Irish Parliament in May 1783 and opened for business in June of that year. The wording of the Act followed that of the Act forming the Bank of England eighty-nine years earlier. The charter gave the Bank of Ireland a ‘semi-monopoly’ privilege in that no other body exceeding six partners could legally issue bank notes. In return for this privilege the full amount of the
paid-up capital of £600,000 Irish was lodged with the government as a permanent loan with interest at 4 per cent annually (Barrow 1975a: 23). The Act also limited the amount of the bank’s borrowing to the amount of its paid-up capital. Any judgement creditor of the bank could receive payment from the Exchequer with the amount deducted from the annual interest payment.1 The lodgement with the government of its capital was then a security fund to meet creditors’ demand should the bank default.2
