Blog Archives
A gombeen-Nation once again : rabble
Illustration Mice Hell
Gombeen (gƊm ‘bi:n). Anglo-Irish. Usury. Chiefly attrib., as Gombeen-Man, a money-lender, usurer; so also gombeen-woman. Hence gom’beenism, the practice of borrowing or lending at usury.
The 19th-century term Gom’beenism, the practice of borrowing or lending at usury, is increasingly referenced in relation to Ireland’s domestic economic practices. Conor McCabe takes a look at the history of the Irish middleman and argues that they haven’t went away.
On Tuesday 3 January 1882 the nobility and landed gentry of Ireland met in Dublin to discuss the future of the island. Among those present was R.J. Mahony, a landowner from Kerry. He stood and said that the recently-passed land act would be the ruin not only of the landlords but of the small farmer as well. He explained that as soon as the landlord class was put out of the way, another would come along to take their place.‘The merchant, the trader, the usurer, the gombeen man,’ said Mahony, were ‘the future rulers of the land.’ Mr. Mahony called these the middlemen, and although he may have had his reasons for defending landlordism, his warnings were not without foundation. Forty years later the middleman were in the ascendancy and set about carving the newly-independent free state in their image – and we’ve been living with the consequences of that ever since.
Just who were these middlemen? In an article published in 1982 Michael D. Higgins wrote that the mainstream image of the period – and the one taught at secondary level – was one of poor small farmers fighting against perfidious, foreign landlords. However, what was glossed over in such a black and white analysis was that there was another struggle – a class struggle – going on, one that involved small farmers and the rancher/grazier families. These large rancher farmers fattened cattle for export, and occasionally they were the local shopkeepers, the arbiters of credit in the community, and the dispensers of loans. It gave them significant societal influence and power. Not all shopkeepers were graziers, of course, but neither one was the friend of the smallholder. The social relations which underpinned Irish rural society were not only framed by land, but by credit: those who needed it, and those who profited from it. And in the north and west of Ireland, it was the Irish entrepreneurial spirit of the middleman and his gombeen cousin that held sway over credit.
Today the middleman is concerned with the tax avoidance, commercial property and resource licences. In the nineteenth century it was the sub-letting of land. The link between the centuries is the practice of positioning oneself between foreign capital and the resources of the island. In an article for the London Times on 7 October 1845 the newspaper’s Irish correspondent explained the ‘middleman’ system to his English readers. Large tracts of land, including waste-land, were let by landlords to a class of businessman known as middlemen. ‘The middleman of 100 acres is no farmer as in England, who invests his capital and skill and industry in the land, and looks for a fair profit,’ write the journalist. The middleman’s ‘laziness makes him prefer doing nothing, his greediness and necessities make him resort to subletting at exorbitant rents to poor tenants, whilst he lives an idle, useless extortioner on the profit rent.’ The poor tenants, in turn, become themselves rent-seekers. ‘He lets out an acre out of his farm of six acres in conacre to some wretched labourer’ wrote the correspondent, ‘who for the potatoes grown on this land is perhaps compelled to work for the farmer the whole year.’
This is not to say that the middleman and gombeen man always got their own way. In the early 1850s the sin of usury and profiteering was punished in the North-West of Ireland by local secret societies such as the Ribbonmen or Molloy Maguires. In one particular case in 1852, recounted by an ex-policeman 50 years later in the Irish Times, three men ‘known as gombeen men purchased agricultural produce in the harvest time and sold out seed in the spring time to needy farmers… touching heavy interest on their three or six months’ bills.’ Their business acumen brought them to the attention of the Ribbonmen. The ex-policeman explained what happened next:
When a gombeen man infringed the rules of the Ribbonmen he was put on trial, and if found guilty, the sentence was carding. His house was visited by a select party of these legislators, generally between midnight and 2am, and he was taken out of bed naked, and placed on a chair in the room, and a pair of wool cards were used with vigour on his chest and back until the blood flowed freely. He was then solemnly cautioned to obey their orders in the future or worse would follow….. The parish priest denounced [the Ribbonmen] from the altar, and a message was conveyed to him to mind his own business.
By the end of the nineteenth century the middleman had expanded their business model into the cities. The decline of Dublin in the decades after the Act of Union and the retreat of the landed gentry from the city opened up the Georgian squares and grand houses to the speculator and rank-renter. In his evidence to the 1884-85 Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes, the chief medical officer of Dublin, Sir Charles Cameron, was scathing in his criticism of this urban class of middlemen. In the word of his biographer, Lydia Carroll, this class ‘rented houses from absentee landlords, to re-let at exorbitant rents to the poor.’ Cameron in his evidence stated that they ‘live by screwing the largest amount of rent they can out of the tenants. The disproportion between the rents which the actual owner of the house gets and the rents these house jobbers get out of the tenants is sometimes as one to three.’
In 1924, when the dust had settled on the Civil War, and with the industrial north ensconced in its own mini-state, the grazier, shop-keeper, rank-renter and gombeen man set about the task of carving the Irish State in their image. And what a sight it is to behold.
Since the 1920s the gombeen has become a shorthand for all the ills and evils of the Irish business class. The sins of the middleman, the rank rents and money lending, have concertinaed into a Pat Shortt bumbling character of cloth cap and Guinness stains proportions. And throughout the history of the state, although the type of business has changed, the underlying principles have not. The Irish entrepreneur is still a rentier-class, still acting as middleman between foreign capital and the resources of the State – but whereas before it was the Georgian houses that marked their lives, now it’s the IFSC and the law and accountancy firms that make billions by handling the tax-avoidance millions of others. The resource for sale today is the right of a nation-state to set its own tax laws, and to have those tax laws recognised internationally. That is a tradable commodity, one that provides a comfortable living for those engaged in it. The business suit has replaced the cloth cap, but the gombeenism and criminal self-interest remain.
Atheist Ireland asks that civil registration Bill be referred
Atheist Ireland has written to President Michael D Higgins asking that he send the Civil Registration Amendment Bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality on the grounds that it discriminates against non-believers.
The group has also written to the Irish Human Rights Commission asking that the Bill be examined from a human rights perspective.
In a statement yesterday, Atheist Ireland said: “We welcome the intention of this Bill to make our law more inclusive.
“However, in practice the Bill accepts and further institutionalises discrimination on the ground of religion or belief.”
The Bill “continues the discrimination in the Act that it is amending, which is discrimination in favour of religious people and against nonreligious people, and it adds new discrimination, this time between non-religious people who have different philosophical and non-confessional beliefs,” the statement added.
“However the law regulates how people can legally solemnise marriages, the law should treat all religious and nonreligious people and bodies equally, and should not discriminate on the ground of religion or belief,” it said.
via Atheist Ireland asks that civil registration Bill be referred – The Irish Times – Sat, Dec 22, 2012.
via Atheist Ireland asks that civil registration Bill be referred – The Irish Times – Sat, Dec 22, 2012.
Reilly says new inquiry into Galway death is ‘not U-turn’
The expected announcement of a second State inquiry into the death of Savita Halappanavar is “an extra dimension, rather than a U-turn”, according to Minister for Health James Reilly.
The board of the Health Information and Quality Authority is expected to confirm today that it will undertake a statutory investigation into Ms Halappanavar’s death, following a request from the Health Service Executive.
It was unclear last night whether her husband Praveen, who says he will have nothing to do with the HSE inquiry, will co-operate with the investigation to be conducted by the authority, which is the State’s health watchdog.
His solicitor Gerard O’Donnell last night said he was “not ruling out” participation in the Hiqa inquiry. However, it was key for his client that it “sits in public, is open and witnesses are called”.
The authority, which has run well-received investigations into Tallaght hospital and misdiagnoses in the health system, conducts its investigations in private and does not take statements under oath but is free to draw up its own terms of reference.
Hiqa welcomed
Dr Reilly welcomed the involvement of Hiqa, saying it would provide “even greater ventilation” of the issues at stake in Ms Halappanavar’s death at Galway University Hospital, his spokesman said.
Asked why the Minister had not used his powers under the 2007 Health Act to order Hiqa to investigate the matter in the first place, he said the HSE was following a protocol, which requires it to get clarity about the facts involved and ensure that a safe service was being provided for patients.
“I wouldn’t see it as a U-turn. At all stages, the first thing the Minister wanted was absolute clarity about this death,” he said. Dr Reilly is due to meet staff from Galway University Hospital today, when he attends a meeting in nearby Merlin Park Hospital.
A special board meeting of Hiqa was held yesterday and is due to reconvene today. A spokesman would only say the board was considering the request received from the HSE.
Ms Halappanavar died at the hospital on October 28th, having presented with severe back pain a week earlier. She had been 17 weeks pregnant and was found to be miscarrying. Mr Halappanavar says she asked repeatedly that the pregnancy be terminated. This was refused, he says, as a foetal heartbeat was present.
HSE director designate Tony O’Brien confirmed it was pursuing its own inquiry – now termed a “clinical review” – despite Mr Halappanavar’s refusal to participate.
Mr O’Brien said even if Ms Halappanavar’s family did not co-operate, the review “must be brought to a conclusion”. There was “no way” the inquiry could be stopped as it would be “criminally negligent” not to proceed.
He accepted the HSE had not been “as aware as it should have been” of the wider context and focused on the “clinical aspects” in its inquiry.
Mr Halappanavar alleged that repeated requests by him and his wife for her pregnancy to be terminated are not documented in her medical records. In contrast, requests for tea, toast and an extra blanket are documented.
President Michael D Higgins has defended his call for proper medical treatment for pregnant women i
via Reilly says new inquiry into Galway death is ‘not U-turn’ – The Irish Times – Fri, Nov 23, 2012.
via Reilly says new inquiry into Galway death is ‘not U-turn’ – The Irish Times – Fri, Nov 23, 2012.
Pension bill for ex-office holders up 25% in 2011 – The Irish Times – Sat, Sep 29, 2012
THE BILL for pensions to former office holders jumped by more than 25 per cent last year, with former presidents, ministers, members of the judiciary and other senior office holders receiving a total of €15.22 million.
That compares with €12.1 million in 2010. The figure includes severance payments of €1.1 million to members of the Fianna Fáil/ Green coalition voted out of office last year.
Figures published last night on the Department of Finance website indicate that only 31 out of almost 200 office holders opted to forgo any portion of their pension. The €347,686 forgone amounts to just 2.3 per cent of the total sum paid in pensions and severance.
The highest pension paid last year was to former Progressive Democrats leader Michael McDowell. However, of the €173,700 he received, more than €142,000 related to backpayment for years in which he had been underpaid. That aside, two former comptroller and auditor generals – John Purcell and Laurie McDonnell – were the largest single beneficiaries, with pensions of €114,700.
Two former taoisigh, Bertie Ahern and Liam Cosgrave, surrendered a portion of their pensions while Brian Cowen, John Bruton and Albert Reynolds did not. Former president Mary Robinson opted to forgo €15,500 of her €139,500 entitlement.
The presidency remains the highest-paid office, with Mary McAleese receiving €280,300 and her successor Michael D Higgins €45,200 during the year, a total of €325,500. Both surrendered a portion of that salary last year.
The figures show the State’s judiciary was paid €27.35 million last year. The position of chief justice was paid €304,974. They also show the total paid in parliamentary leaders’ allowances fell last year to €7.2 million, from €8 million in 2010. Sinn Féin saw its leader’s allowance more than double to €933,876 from €335,425 the previous year. The allowance for Labour also rose while the figures for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael fell.
via Pension bill for ex-office holders up 25% in 2011 – The Irish Times – Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
via Pension bill for ex-office holders up 25% in 2011 – The Irish Times – Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
