Lecture 2 of ‘The Webinar Series’
Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society
Date: 18th August 2020 at 7:30pm
Mr Bryan MacMahon
Presents
‘The Cantillons and their French Connection’
To mark Heritage Week 2020, Bryan MacMahon will deliver a lecture entitled ‘The Cantillons and their French Connection’. This will take place on Thursday the 18th of August 2020 at 7.30pm.
The Webinar will provide an overview of the Cantillons of North Kerry. It will cover the history and folklore associated with the Norman family, who achieved great prominence in North Kerry from the 13th century. It is a story of soldiers and speculators, bards and bankers, saints and scribes.
The talk will centre on three prominent individuals, including Ballyheigue-born Richard Cantillon who achieved fame as a millionaire in France in the early-1700s. He made his fortune as a banker and speculator, and wrote a seminal book on economics. He has been called “the greatest economist of all” and the Irish Times has a column named in his honour. Another Cantillon of Kerry descent was a supporter of Napoleon who made a notorious assassination attempt on the Duke of Wellington in 1818. Finally, Thomas de Cantillon Church was a journalist and poet in Kerry in the 1860s who championed the rights of tenants and denounced landlordism.
Bryan Mac Mahon is a retired teacher and a long-standing member of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society. He has written numerous articles for both the Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society and The Kerry Magazine.
