Mick Clifford: Government may yet regret ignoring the history of evictions in Ireland

Evictions resonate so deeply with Irish people that ending the ban with no alleviating measures borders on recklessness

Tenants being evicted from a house on Hector Vandeleur’s estate in Co Clare in 1888. Irish people are highly conscious of such historic images — but we would do well to also look back just a decade, at the fallout from the banking collapse.

Early in 1923, as a new state struggled to be born under the weight of the Civil War, some of the old problems continued to surface. A piece in The Cork Examiner at the time reported on a letter sent to the Minister for Agriculture — a strange choice under the circumstances — about evictions.

The letter was penned by the chair of the Cork Evicted Tenants’ Association, Dan O’Connor.

“A very large number of evicted tenants have entrusted their claims to the Cork Evicted Tenants’ Association,” he wrote.

“I feel scrupulously solicitous concerning their interests and in compliance with their wishes I appeal to you with sincere respect and confidence that you will use the influence of your exalted position to urge upon the government to deal effectively with this long-standing grievance.”

The cover of UCC's 'Atlas Of The Great Irish Famine' features 'The Eviction' (c1850) by Daniel MacDonald, in the collection of the Crawford Gallery, Cork.

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Mr O’Connor gave a few details of his own background.

“I was on the platform with the late Mr Michael Davitt in the village of Irishtown when he initiated the Land League.

“Later on, I was evicted from my holding at Carrigrohane, two miles from this city, in connection with which I was prosecuted under the Balfour Coercion Act and imprisoned in Cork Gaol.

“Owing to the prevailing chaos caused by the regrettable Parnell split, the evicted tenants became friendless and the Cork Evicted Tenants’ Association was then formed in 1888 when I was elected chairman.”

The letter by Dan O’Connor in 'The Cork Examiner' on January 30, 1923 refers back to the foundation of the Land League, and its themes still resonate with Irish people to this day.

The newspaper article illustrates how, despite the advances achieved under Davitt and the Land League, and despite the winning of an independent state, the complete imbalance of power between landlord and tenant persisted.

By 1923, evictions were forged into the national psyche.

The security achieved by ownership of one’s home was a guiding principle in the new state, particularly after Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932.

Folk memory can exercise a strong political pull.

In 2020, attempts to remember the long history of the RIC in this country were scuppered when the project was cast by opponents as celebrating the Black and Tans.

This was a complete distortion but it worked.

Dan O’Connor's letter came just a decade after this eviction attended by RIC policemen at Watergrasshill, Co Cork in 1913. Folk memory is so powerful that a centenary commemoration of the RIC's disbandment had to be scrapped. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

Accentuating the problem with the proposed commemoration was the fact that it would be one of the first of its kind during the centenary year of the War of Independence.

Quite obviously, not a lot of thought went into that.

According to various political scientists, the botched commemoration was a factor in the 2020 general election, costing Fine Gael votes.

The ending of the ban on evictions could turn out to exercise its own political toll. All the indications are that not a lot of thought went into it either.

Prior to the announcement of the decision on March 7, any leaks or hints from the general Government orbit pointed towards the likelihood of an extension of the ban.

This made sense.

If there is broad acceptance that the ban has to end sometime then the obvious thing to do is put in place a series of measures to alleviate the impact.

That the Government decided to drive on with ending the ban before the measures were in place now looks to have been airheaded, bordering on reckless.

What was the big rush in doing something that had the potential to summon ghosts from folk memory?

Evictions today — and in particular those that may follow the ending of the ban — are far removed from what Dan O’Connor had to deal with in Cork in 1923.

No-fault evictions are an exercise in a property owner reclaiming their asset, with no fault accruing to the tenant.

It has nothing to do with the ability to pay the rent, or the inability to meet a rent increase (although there is evidence that a small number of evictions are designed to circumvent rent restrictions by swapping an existing tenant for a new one paying higher rent).

The landlord is not representative of a tiny minority whose everyday life is completely removed from that of the tenant, as was the case a century ago.

Ireland today is not a poor country, but a wealthy one in which a considerable cohort of people has done well enough to buy a second property as an investment.

Now they may want to rethink their investment, and maybe look elsewhere in an effort to better secure their own future. And in many instances, these landlords simply want to retrieve their property as part of a family plan to house an offspring or other relative.

But the result of the eviction today resonates with that of yesteryear.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien. The Government seems to be relying on the average homeowner, who is also more likely to be a voter, not reacting negatively to the ending of the eviction moratorium. File picture: Niall Carson/PA

The photograph of the tenant farmer and his family standing outside their former home, worldly possessions piled high on the roadside, the helmeted policemen looking on, is a staple of Irish history books.

Today, the evicted are to be filmed possibly in a cramped hotel bedroom that is totally unsuitable for children, living transiently because there is no equivalent home which they could acquire when their former one was returned to its owner.

It is a shocking indictment of governance over the last decade that it has failed in the basic task of housing its people at a time when the economy raced ahead.

Right now, the Government parties appear to be relying on getting past this on the basis that the average homeowner, who is also more likely to be a voter, will not react negatively to the ending of the ban.

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There is also the possibility that the projections for expected evictions, running somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000, won’t turn out to be accurate.

We were here before, a decade ago.

Following the banking collapse and a huge level of defaulting mortgages, there were predictions daily of a tsunami of repossessions, which would have left thousands without homes. That didn’t happen.

The Troika was informed about the history of evictions in this country so the pressure was not applied from that quarter.

Also, the banks were chastened enough by their role in crashing the economy that they weren’t going to go looking for further trouble.

Today’s landlords wishing to exit have no obligations or culpability in that respect and all will act independently.

The next few months will tell exactly whether this is going to be as bad as is now being predicted.

If the predictions do turn out to be accurate and things turn ugly, then the Government parties may well regret
ignoring history when they agreed on their hasty decision to end the eviction ban.