During the first week of May 1720 a proposal was published in Dublin addressed to ‘the Nobility, Gentry and Commonalty of this Kingdom of Ireland’, calling for the establishment of a national bank. The proposed bank would address several contemporary economic grievances including the drain of Irish money to the South Sea Company. Public subscriptions were called for to raise the £500,000 capital believed to be necessary for its operation and subscribers' names were to be collected daily in the Merchant's Coffee House in the city from 19 May until the subscription was filled. This was the beginning of a scheme that would dominate Irish political and economic debate over the next eighteen months. The author of the prospectus was John Irwin, a somewhat obscure Dublin projector, and his was one of three projects for a national bank floated in early summer 1720. These bank proposals, together with two plans put forward for an Irish fire insurance company in June 1720, were part of a wider proliferation of ‘projects’ and bubbles which emerged across Britain and Ireland at this time, as attempts were made to cash in on the investment boom being driven by the South Sea Company. Some of these projects, like the North Sea Fishery in Scotland, the York Buildings Company and arguably the Bank of Ireland, were based on sound fundamentals. Others such as Richard Steele's fish importing business or the scheme for a perpetual motion company floated in London belonged more to the realm of fancy.