ABSTRACT
After the establishment of the Whately Chair in 1832 at Trinity College Dublin, the most important contribution to the teaching of political economy in Ireland was the foundation of the Queen’s Colleges in 1845. Each of the three colleges, at Belfast, Cork, and Galway, had from the outset a chair of Jurisprudence and Political Economy. The external events included the French Revolution and the ensuing war between Great Britain and the new revolutionary regime. One of the results of the French Revolution was the closing down of the Irish Colleges in France and Flanders, which had been the principal locations for the education of the Irish Catholic clergy. The intervening period, from the close of the eighteenth century to the 1840s, was not marked by lack of activity with respect to higher education in Ireland, north or south.
