Welcome to my website – I hope you find it useful. I am an economist, with an interest in the Irish economy, the world economy and property markets, three topics which form the backbone of the site. My experience is as an economic researcher and analyst across academic, private and public sectors, with work in the areas of public policy, national competitiveness, property markets, ICT and economic development, economic growth, foreign direct investment and the history of globalization.

I seem to have always been interested in economic affairs. My earliest economic idea was when I was six or seven: I wanted to become an architect so that I could design six buildings employing 50,000 each, thus solving Ireland’s then unemployment crisis! (If only it were that simple now.) Unfortunately, I had to wait almost another ten years before really getting stuck in to economics, when I started in Trinity College, Dublin. Having graduated with a first class joint honours degree in Economics & Political Science, I went on to read a first-class honours M.Sc. and a research-based M.Litt. in Economics, where my thesis was on the relationship between labor market inequality and its determinants, including deglobalization, unionization and industrial change.

After serving briefly as a Junior Diplomat with Irish Aid in 2005/2006, I was economist for Ireland’s National Competitiveness Council and a policy analyst at Forfás, Ireland’s enterprise policy advisory board in 2006 and 2007. From 2007 to 2009, I was a Managing Consultant at the IBM Global Center for Economic Development, part of IBM’s business think-tank, the Institute for Business Value. My work involved research and analysis on issues of importance to economic development, including the socioeconomic impact of ICT, e-readiness, emerging markets, environmental challenges and the global economic recession. On the basis of my work on economic development, I have been asked to present nationally and internationally on Ireland’s economic development and on topics relating to competitiveness and foreign direct investment.

In 2004, I set up the Economic Research unit at daft.ie, Ireland’s largest property website, and since then, I have been responsible for the quarterly reports on Ireland’s residential sales and lettings markets. The Daft Report has grown to become one of the most widely cited economic reports in the country, featuring in more than 200 print media articles alone every year. The Daft Report is also the reason I am a regular contributor to Irish media, including RTE Morning Ireland, Newstalk, the Irish Independent, the Irish Examiner, Today FM’s the Last Word and national and regional news programmes.

If you’d like to contact me, click here. You can also connect with me on twitter or LinkedIn, if you’re on either of those networks.

PS. While economics is the primary focus of my attentions and thus of my website, I am also interested in and post about genealogy, technology, politics and a few other bits and pieces, which are hidden away here. I have a separate genealogy site, on myheritage.com, with lots more information on my family tree, if that’s of interest.