The Irish are quick to anger when the border with Northern Ireland is involved. Just recently, someone advised a Belgian bank to hire Unionist security people from the Republic of Ireland in order to evict a 64 year old farmer and two sons from their property.
Caught on video, the violent eviction has become a lightning rod for rekindling sectarian anger, culminating in a gang of masked men attacking the security personnel from the north, who had remained behind to guard the farm from becoming re-occupied by the owner (it has).
There has been much head scratching about how a foreign bank could make such a Unionist/Republican blunder. Oblivious to Irish history. . . or. . .cynically calculating? Banks and financial institutions are adept at flying under the radar.1 Was this move by the KBC bank meant to deflect attention from their own role?
If so, it didn’t work.
In the midst of a global affordable housing crisis, much is said about citizen responsibilities, building industry responsibilities and government responsibilities. There is very little about bank and financial institution responsibilities — the borrowing foundation upon which free market home ownership is built. Of course we do hear about a bank’s duty to collect what is owed to them, and in cases of financial default, their absolute right to assume ownership of a property.
Angry mobs in Ireland were not distracted completely from familiar north-south animosities. They quickly found time to focus their attention on the KBC bank as well. There is indeed a great deal of anger towards the banking and financial system whose overreach continues to be blamed (with good cause) on the domino-effect collapse of the ‘Irish Tiger’ economy following the American financial meltdown of 2008. As to KBC’s fate in the current matter, read more about some immediate consequences in the Irish Times: Second KBC bank branch damaged in early-morning arson attack in Dublin
Meanwhile, the Irish government itself has been hunting for scapegoats, including an investigation into the ‘security’ personnel from Northern Ireland. Read more in the Irish Times: Roscommon eviction: Investigation begins into conduct of security men
Another potential scapegoat is social media, which hosted a great deal of the anger, and needless to say, passed it on to others. Read more in the Irish Times: Roscommon eviction posts are ‘an incitement to hatred’, Taoiseach says
A much deeper and more troubling analysis of the situation turns on the number of Irish property owners deeply in arrears on their mortgage or loan payments, many as a result of the economic collapse a decade ago. This threatens to double, treble or more the number of homeless in Ireland if the repossession and resale of collateral properties takes place on a scale that is now predicted. Read more in the Irish Times: What the Roscommon eviction is really about
The Irish government, seemingly focused on ‘unlawful Unionist rogues crossing the border’ on one hand, and ‘irresponsible and hate mongering social media’ on the other, would so far seem reluctant to address what an angry population can clearly see. The principal problem is the evictions themselves. 2
Are there lessons here for other nations? The Roscommon eviction has a set of hot-button issues involved for an Irish population in no mood to be trifled with. But consider in any nation a mix of high-handed bank repossessions, a rapid increase in homelessness, together with an indifferent (or worse complicit) government expressing denial of a very real affordable housing crisis. The right mix of fear, anger and homelessness could well spawn the same kind of angry citizen revolts in any country.
P.S. For those interested in the original ‘Rosscommon eviction,’ it’s readily available in several different video clips on Youtube, together with interviews given by leaders of angry mobs.
