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Ennis was home to several note issuers in the early 1800s, one of them at least was a bank, Francis McMahon, and registered as such (1805-1816).

The note issuers appear to have all used a similar design for their notes, differing only in their logo and in their name printed along the left side in a sometimes illegible uppercase script typeface.

Below are two similar notes from different issuers.

I cannot identify the issuer on the issued One Guinea note, dated 10 July 1815. Unfortunately I don't have a better image of the note.

Under it is an unissued note for One Guinea with the name John O'Donnell along the side. O'Donnell appears to have never been registered as a banker, and was probably a merchant who issued notes. Another such merchant was Michael O'Brien, which is not the name on the issued note above.

Comparing the letters of the mystery note with the John O’Donnell note, it looks like P E T E R . K E- - E
.

Looks like Peter Blake !

The promissory statements on these items are similar to those seen on post bills.

We'll go with Peter Blake! That would make it a currently unrecorded issuer for Ennis.

Great to see a note from a new issuer turn up.

I did some searching for a Peter Blake and close variants of this name and eventually stumbled upon this interesting article about three notes acquired for The Clare Museum (Ennis) in 2001 by Roche Corporation.

www .clarelibrary.ie/eolas/claremuseum/news_events/1800_banknotes.htm

Images of two of these notes are on the museum website, link below. The 1 guinea note is similar to the one posted earlier (not an issue of the Ennis Chronicle Office as mentioned) and the £1 note indicates that Peter Blake owned a tannery.

www .clarelibrary.ie/eolas/claremuseum/riches_of_clare/power/banknotes.htm

Thanks for that DOC!
I will add these 'Ennis' issues to the main web site in the next update of banks.

Here is an unissued Ennis Mills 1 guinea note with the name of Michael O’Brien who presumably was the owner of these mills. An interesting feature is the early use of colour. The promissory statement “seven days after date I promise to pay ............ or order in Limerick Bank Paper” suggests that this is a sight bill.

He was doing alright to be able to afford to go for 2 colour printing on his notes!

Nice work guys in identifying that Peter Blake issue.
It looks like there was a good deal of activity going on in Ennis back then in terms of Currency Issue.

Some luck was involved there.
The Peter Blake note was in an old Spink Catalogue, 2008. I had saved the image form their website at the time, and rediscovered it recently!

A local newspaper in Ennis, ‘The Ennis Chronicle and Clare Advertiser’ issued silver notes in the early 1800’s. An example from 1804 is attached. The unusual denomination, one Shilling Seven Pence Half-Penny, equates to 1/14th of a Guinea. The note is signed by Foster Parsons, owner of the paper. More information about the newspaper is provided in the following link.

www .clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/ennis_chronicle/index.htm

There sure is a lot of obscure info related to these old banks and organizations buried on the web. Finding it is the real trick. It's really great when an image of a currency bill turns up that wasn't available before.

The 1 Shilling Seven Pence Halfpenny July 1804 note has appeared in auction several times in the past 20 years, the first being Whytes in 2001 along with the two Peter Blake notes in the Clare Museum (Ennis) presented by Roche Corporation.

They could all originally be from the same collection then.

That’s quite possible.
There were a couple of scarce Galway Bank notes in that sale also.

Here is an attractively designed Ennis Chronicle office 3s 9½d silver note printed circa 1804.