Currency, Credit and Crisis

Honohan, Patrick

doi:10.1017/9781108680325

Cited by 52 publications

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“…For Brennan, a central bank would have the ability to lend locally (including to government) and influence local interest rates by requiring the Irish banks to hold their assets in Dublin (Honohan 2019, p. 31). He believed it would provide the Irish authorities with more powers to control inflation.…”

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, for Ireland the scale of dependence upon Britain required a high level of economic convergence in order to maintain confidence in the Irish economy (Honohan 1997). Currency boards were also a popular means of regulating currency matters in British colonies and dominions in the 1920s (Honohan 2019, p. 31). The Irish system from 1928 also provided a flow of seigniorage to government and ensured that developments in Irish retail prices and interest rates paralleled those in Britain.…”

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notwithstanding his friendship with Brennan, Jacobsson was clear in what he needed to ‘teach the Irish’ (cited in Fanning 1984, p. 150). He also clearly didn't allow his personal relationships to distract him from keeping the Bank of England directly informed of events from within the Banking Commission (Honohan 2019, p. 33).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Brennan, in supporting a central bank, was seeking to put in place the institutional framework capable of absorbing increased monetary and currency independence in the future. The immediate objective of the Irish Central Bank established in 1943 – as a central bank adhering to a fixed exchange rate – was to ‘avoid any speculative or international payments pressure’ that could have brought the parity sterling link into doubt (Honohan 2019, p. 34). This was achieved until the sterling link ended when Ireland joined the European Monetary System, without Britain, in 1979 37…”

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confidence: 99%

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A reappraisal of Joseph Brennan and the achievements of Irish banking and currency policy 1922–1943

Drea

Barry

2021

Financial History Review

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Joseph Brennan, as secretary of the Irish Department of Finance (1923–7) and chair of the Irish Currency Commission (1927–43), was a pivotal influence on Irish banking and currency affairs. Yet, within the existing literature, his adherence to conservative British norms is seen as providing a ‘bleak prescription’ for the Irish economy. However, such a view ignores the fact that Brennan was far from dogmatic on banking and currency issues and underplays his incrementalist, and often internationalist, approach to the development of Irish monetary institutions. Brennan's actions up to the early 1940s were based on the realities of Ireland's slowly receding economic and intellectual dependency on Britain, a ‘dependency’ often misrepresented in the existing literature as a more primitive, pre-Keynesian, conservative approach. However, rather than acting as a restraining influence on Irish economic development, the policies Brennan advocated enabled Ireland to avoid the instability associated with many smaller, emerging nation states in the 1920s and 1930s. The focus on continuity – which guaranteed currency and banking stability – represented the realities of Ireland's reliance on the sluggish British economy in the decades after independence. Brennan's achievement, in helping to sustain banking and currency stability notwithstanding economic uncertainty, a fragile political environment (and suspicious banking interests), deserves wider acknowledgement.

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Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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