The Irish market closed just short of its all-time high, but most of those gains were down to Elan with nearly all the other large capitalisation stocks little changed on a day when world equity markets were generally weaker.

Elan was trading almost 1 per cent higher on the NYSE after the stock dealt up Irish market closed 51 cents higher on #58.50. CRH was firm in early trading and dealt up as high as #20.20 before profittaking brought the stock back to #19.89, a cent lower. Turnover was just over two million shares.

There was solid trading in most of the financial shares. Anglo Irish was once again in demand and traded as high as #4.29 before closing unchanged on #4.25 after 2.9 million shares dealt. At that closing price, Anglo Irish shares have gained 37 per cent in the space of a month. AIB was unchanged on #12.90, Bank of Ireland drifted two cents lower to #11.00 while Irish Life made up some lost ground and rose 43 cents to #12.98 in turnover of just over two million shares.

Technology shares were mixed, but the best performer was Parthus which dealt up 8-1/2p to 105p sterling in large volumes after announcing a link-up with semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics. Iona was hit by selling and was trading $3.30 by midday on Nasdaq on $41.15. Smartforce was 86 cents higher on $36.55 but Baltimore remained weak and closed 1-1/2p lower on 90p sterling as the market waits to see the group's proposals to cut its costs.