Joseph Brennan was born on 18 November 1887 in Hill Terrace, Bandon, County Cork. In 1909 he entered Christ Church, Cambridge and studied Mathematics and classics. In 1911 he entered the Civil Service and was assigned to the Board of Customs and Excise and a year later the finance division of the Chief Secretary’s office in Dublin Castle. During the 1921 Truce he met Michael Collins and became a financial advisor to the team negotiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1922 he became the Irish Free State’s first comptroller and auditor general and later the Secretary of the Department of Finance until 1927 when he retired from the Civil Service. He was then appointed as chairman of the Currency Commission from 1927 to 1943. In 1929 he visited London to discuss currency matters with chancellors of the exchequer, Winston Churchill and Phillip Snowden. In 1943 he became the first Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland. Brennan was also active in the Statistical and Social Enquiry Society and the Institute of Banking in Ireland and became president of both. In March 1938 he was awarded an honorary LLD by the NUI. He died at Clancool on 3 March, 1976.

Physical description: 58 boxes.