From plastic leprechauns to Kerry Gold

On Dec. 6 Jim Kennelly, business professor and holder of the Ross Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies, made a formal presentation of his recent book on Ireland's economy to President Michael D. Higgins at his official Dublin residence, Áras an Uachtaráin. Kennelly and his co-author, Irish scholar Finbarr Bradley, spent an hour with Higgins, discussing the book's ideas and other business and economic issues. A poet and essayist, Higgins earned a master's degree in sociology from Indiana University and was a professor in the US and Ireland before concentrating on his political career. Kennelly says, "He's a true intellectual, and he really seemed to relish the opportunity for a deep, rich discussion." 

The new book is Gombeens at the Gate: Renewing the Rising through Ideals, Character, and Place. (Here, "gombeen" is slang for a money-grubber or usurer.) The Dublin Review of Books calls the work "admirable" and "essential reading for government policy-makers and students of business." 

The book points to the unsustainability of the economic recovery under way now, after the collapse of 2008. Ireland is relying heavily on foreign investment incentivized by very low corporate tax rates, but any other country slashing its own corporate taxes could pull that business away. To balance that risk, the authors call for building more indigenous enterprises that use Ireland's culture and history as selling points. 

Since "Ireland really owns the color green," Kennelly observes, food businesses could build branding around greenness, as Kerry Gold butter has done (in 2001 he wrote The Kerry Way: A History of the Kerry Group). Another promising sector is tourism—"not plastic leprechauns and the Blarney Stone," he says, "but something deep and genuine." He cites a successful wool knitwear brand "whose message to customers is that they're buying not just a garment but a place—one that is uniquely and distinctly Irish," evoking a pastoral setting and heritage of artisanship.

This is Kennelly's fourth book about Irish business history and policies, and the third co-authored with Bradley, a professor at University College Dublin. Both earned their PhDs at NYU's Stern School of Business. Their first two books were The Irish Edge (2013) and Capitalising on Culture, Competing on Difference (2008). Among their companions on the presidential visit was Theo Dorgan, the well-known Irish literary and arts figure.

Kennelly's next projects include more inquiries into notions of place—geographic, cultural, sociological—and how they can affect and be affected by business.