In Ireland the Entrepreneur has historically had a bit of a bad name. In the Pogue’s song ‘Navigator’ the emotional pivot point is on the word Entrepreneur as Irish emigrants are exploited by (probably other Irish) Entrepreneurs as the infrastructure of the other country was put in place.

The canals and the bridges, the embankments and cuts,
They blasted and dug with their sweat and their guts
They never drank water but whiskey by pints
And the shanty towns rang with their songs and their fights.

Navigator, navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there’s work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite
For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight
Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight.

They died in their hundreds with no sign to mark where
Save the brass in the pocket of the entrepreneur.
By landslide and rockblast they got buried so deep
That in death if not life they’ll have peace while they sleep.

Navigator, navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there’s work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite
For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight
Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight.

Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid
The way for a commerce where vast fortunes were made
The supply of an empire where the sun never set
Which is now deep in darkness, but the railway’s there yet.

Navigator, navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there’s work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite
For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight
Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight.

I wonder is there a part in the Irish psyche that is set against Entrepreneurship? If there is it must be pretty deep because I am an Entrepreneur and even I have a bit of bad feeling about Entrepreneurs.

Didn’t the settled Irish in America most cruelly exploit their countrymen who had just arrived? Duffy’s Cut, for example, is a story of murder of Irish workers because they were suspected of having Cholera. But Patrick Duffy hired then for near nothing and put them to work digging. They died like so many others building America in employment more like slavery under the control of Irish Entrepreneurs.

Perhaps it is just that the Irish have been oppressed forever, in employment or impoverished and out of employment. It seems that there are few great Irish Entrepreneurs and when we have one, they turn out to be bad. More often the Entrepreneur was the Englishman or American whose company employed the Irish once we had emigrated.

In Derry many of the cities greatest Shirt Industry Entrepreneurs were of Scottish descent, not Irish. The Irish were the ones working in the factory, not the owners.

Recently the history of entrepreneur’s has not been great either: Entrepreneur developers are largely to blame for the economic meltdown of the Celtic Tiger. Having bankrupt Ireland in mad speculation they now escape to the UK to avoid Irish bankruptcy laws. When they get through the courts in Britain they come back and buy mansions.

The Shirt Factory Horn – courtesy of BBC Northern Ireland

The worker is more respected. Even today, Entrepreneurs such as Denis O Brien, Michael O Leary are treated with some suspicion. Builder developers, people who have tried and lost are not particularly liked. Listening to the news about the collapse of the Celtic Tiger it seems like the ordinary honest worker has been robbed again.

Faced with a lack of industry in Ireland successive governments have sought inward investment. There is a sense that a job in a big respectable American/German/Japanese/English company is as good as it gets. On occasion this strategy has been brilliantly successful.

I wonder if because of the success of Inward investment projects is the idea of the entrepreneur not being one of ‘us’ is re-enforced?

There was  period of super confidence when being Irish and being an entrepreneur were almost the same thing. In 1998 and again in 2002 tech start-ups in particular seemed to flourish.

Class task: Name four Irish Entrepreneurs

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