‘Bring the back the Boycott!’-- The Rusty Wire predicts it first!

Captain Boycott:
Back to the '70s, the 1870s 

Recently, The Rusty Wire Service made a (cod) plea for boycotts and flash-mobs in response to the recent and sadly ongoing shenanigans of Ireland’s bankers, developers and politicians. If nothing else, this was a prescient jape.

A news story from 11 November offered readers a glimpse of what might be in the pipeline further down the road as the cuts really take hold. According to one news site (thejournal.ie: “A 67-acre plot of farmland about an hour north of Dublin managed to attract just a single bid at auction yesterday – of just €1.”

The land being auctioned off by the receiver belonged to George Beglin, a local solicitor involved in property development. Mr Beglin still lives near the 67-acre site at Crossakiel in Kells, Co Meath.

Mr Beglin’s neighbours had, through their actions, made a clear and lawful expression of their feelings on the situation. By the time the story rumbled on to 12 November, the Indo felt confident enough to proclaim that “€1 bid for farm shows depth of locals' anger toward banks”.

Other papers quickly drew inevitable comparisons with John B Keane’s ‘The Field’. A number of TV bumtits (excuse me,Pundits, damn this dyslexic Tourette’s) were happy enough to remind us of that great Irish fondness for land (‘sure, you’re nothin’ without it’).

It should be pointed out however that the landowner in question was himself an overextended speculator. But he was just not big enough to be bailed out by the taxpayer so the media have played this as a ‘Banks vs The Rest of Us’ story.

Now obviously, I’d love to think that the farmers of Meath are avid readers of The Rusty Wire Service and they tuned in their hundreds to my recent tongue in cheek call for a return to such joyfully old-school and still very effective tactics but given that The Rusty Wire had exactly no followers at the time of writing, I’m guessing they went off on a little frolic of their own. 

"The Bird's right, I am the Bull..." 

This little frolic didn’t happen in some remote, insular rural community, where savage (and beautifully cinematic) primitivism reigns. This little drama played out only an hour’s drive from Dublin.

Our friend the bank was, of course, quick to offer a typically sour, beancounter’s response which essentially amounted to them saying that the land would be sold irrespective of the locals’ wishes, most likely by private treaty.

The bank’s statement also went on to suggest, in vaguely threatening terms, that the failed auction might have done the landowner no favours in that they now might not be able to get the target price and therefore less of the landowner’s debt would drawn down as a result.

I reckon the bank might be confusing these farmers with someone who actually gives a shit. Either way, I suspect the banks, the government and indeed the rest of the gravy-train riders will be very keen to make sure that this kind of carry-on doesn’t become a regular occurrence.

Certainly, if the boycotting of auctions started to become more common, it would be quite a fillip to other, shall we say; more proactive approaches to commercial and even civil disobedience.

But if you expect me to pronounce that we may well look back on this incident and say ‘this is where open hostilities were first declared in earnest on the Irish ruling class’ then you’re mad.