Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:34:52.351Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2021

Eoin Drea  and
Frank Barry
Eoin Drea
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin and Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, Brussels
Frank Barry
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Keywords

BankingCurrency CommissionIrelandinterwarEuropean Union

JEL classification

N14: Europe: 1913– O23: Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development N43: Europe: Pre-1913
Type
Articles
Information
Financial History Review , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , April 2021 , pp. 45 - 66
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Association for Banking and Financial History

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

E. Drea, Research Fellow, School of Business, Trinity College Dublin, and Senior Research Officer, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, Brussels, email: eoindrea@hotmail.com; F. Barry, Professor of International Business and Development, School of Business, Trinity College Dublin, email: barryfg@tcd.ie. This article was prepared while Eoin Drea was an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Business, Trinity College Dublin (2018–20). The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments and suggestions of two anonymous referees. All errors rest with the authors.

References

Sources

Allied Irish Bank ArchiveGoogle Scholar
Bank of England Archives, London: Ireland Files, Central Banking Files, Governors’ Files, Sir Otto Niemeyer Papers, Inflation calculatorGoogle Scholar
Central Bank of Ireland Archives, Dublin: Governors’ Files, Currency Commission Files, Joseph Brennan FilesGoogle Scholar
Central Statistics Office of Ireland, Consumer price indexGoogle Scholar
Irish PressGoogle Scholar
Irish TimesGoogle Scholar
LeaderGoogle Scholar
National Archives of Ireland, Dublin: Department of Finance and Department of the Taoiseach FilesGoogle Scholar
National Library of Ireland: Joseph Brennan PapersGoogle Scholar
University College Dublin Archives, Dublin: Ernest Blythe Papers, Sean MacEntee PapersGoogle Scholar
University of Basel Archives, Basel: Per Jacobsson PapersGoogle Scholar

References

Aldcroft, D. (1992). From Versailles to Wall Street 1919–1929. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Aldcroft, D. (2004). Exchange rate regimes and economic performance in the interwar years. In Catterall, R. and Ashcroft, D. (eds.), Exchange Rates and Economic Policy in the 20th Century. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Aldcroft, D. (2006). Europe's Third World: The European Periphery in the Interwar Years. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Barbieri, K. and Keshk, O. (2017). Correlates of War Project Trade Data Set 1870–2014. Version 4.0. University of South Carolina and Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Brownlow, G. (2010). Political economy – from nation building to stagnation. In Boylan, B., Prendergast, R. and Turner, J. D. (eds.), A History of Irish Economic Thought. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Clarke, P. (2009). Keynes: The Twentieth Century's Most Influential Economist. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Commission of Inquiry into Banking, Currency and Credit (1938). Dublin: Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Crafts, N. (2014). Walking wounded: the British economy in the aftermath of World War I. VOX: CEPR Policy Portal.Google Scholar
Daly, M. E. (2011). The Irish Free State and the great depression of the 1930s: the interaction of the global and the local. Irish Economic and Social History, 37, pp. 19–35.Google Scholar
De Bromhead, A., Fernihough, A., Lampe, M. and O'Rourke, K. (2019). When Britain turned inward: the impact of interwar British protection. American Economic Review, 109(2), pp. 325–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Don-Siemion, T. (2020). Hyperinflation and stabilisation in Poland, 1919–1927: ‘war of attrition’ or politics by other means? Unpublished and ongoing PhD thesis, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Drea, E. (2014). The Bank of England, Montagu Norman and the internationalisation of Anglo-Irish monetary relations 1922–1943. Financial History Review, 21, pp. 59–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drea, E. (2015). The impact of Henry Parker Willis and the Federal Reserve on the institutional design of the Irish Currency Act 1927. Historical Journal, 58, pp. 855–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drummond, I. (1987). The Gold Standard and the International Monetary System 1900–39. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eichengreen, B. (1996). Globalising Capital: A History of the International Monetary System. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Eichengreen, B. and Irwin, D. (2010). The slide to protectionism in the great depression: who succumbed and why? Journal of Economic History, 70, pp. 871–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eichengreen, B. and Sachs, J. (1985). Exchange rates and economic recovery in the 1930s. Journal of Economic History, 45, pp. 925–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fanning, R. (1978). The Irish Department of Finance 1922–56. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.Google Scholar
Fanning, R. (1983). Independent Ireland. Dublin: Helicon Books.Google Scholar
Fanning, R. (1984). Economists and governments: Ireland 1922–52. In Murphy, A. E. (ed.), Economists and the Irish Economy from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day. Dublin: Irish Academic PressGoogle Scholar
Fanning, R. (1986). Britain's legacy: government and administration. In Drudy, P. J. (ed.), Ireland and Britain since 1922. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Farrell, B. (1968). The new state and Irish political culture. Administration, 16, pp. 238–46.Google Scholar
Feeney, T. (2009). Seán MacEntee: A Political Life. Dublin: Irish Academic Press.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H., Temin, P. and Toniolo, G. (1995). International economic organisation: banking, finance and trade in Europe between the wars. In Feinstein, C. H. (ed.), Banking, Currency and Finance in Europe between the Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, J. and Kenny, S. (2020). ‘Til debt do us part’: financial implications of the divorce of the Irish Free State from the UK 1922–26. European Review of Economic History, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, D. (2015). Irish consequences of the Great War. Irish Historical Studies, 39, pp. 643–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honohan, P. (1997). Currency board or central bank? lessons from Irish pound's link with sterling 1928–79. Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, 50, pp. 39–67.Google Scholar
Honohan, P. (2019). Currency, Credit and Crisis: Central Banking in Ireland and Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honohan, P. and Murphy, M. (2010). Breaking the sterling link: Ireland's decision to enter the EMS. Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Discussion Paper 317.Google Scholar
Howson, S. (1975). Domestic Monetary Management in Britain 1919–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Irish Department of Industry and Commerce (1931). Statistical Abstract. Dublin: Government Publication Office.Google Scholar
Jacobsson, E. E. (1979). A Life for Sound Money, Per Jacobsson, His Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, K. A., Giblin, T. and Mchugh, D. (1988). The Economic Development of Ireland in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keynes, J. M. (1924). Alfred Marshall 1842–1924. The Economic Journal, 34, pp. 311–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keynes, J. M. (1930). A Treatise on Money. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Keynes, J.M. (1933). National self-sufficiency. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 22, pp. 177–93.Google Scholar
Klasing, M. J. and MILIONIS, P. (2014). Quantifying the evolution of world trade 1870–1949. Journal of International Economics, 92, pp. 185–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laidler, D. (1999). Fabricating the Keynesian Revolution: Studies of the Interwar Literature on Money, the Cycle, and Unemployment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, J. J. (1989). Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mehrling, P. (2002). Retrospectives: economists and the Fed: beginnings. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 16, pp. 207–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maguire, M. (2008). The Civil Service and the Revolution in Ireland, 1912–1938. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
McGowan, P. (1988). Money and banking in Ireland: origins, development and future. Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 1, pp. 45–132.Google Scholar
Meenan, J. (1970). The Irish Economy since 1922. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, M. and Rutherford, M. (1998). American economists: the character of the transformation. History of Political Economy, 38, pp. 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moynihan, M. (1975), Currency and Central Banking in Ireland 1922–60. Dublin: Central Bank of Ireland and Gill & Macmillan.Google Scholar
Neary, J. P. and O'Gráda, C. (1991). Economic war and structural change: the 1930s in Ireland. Irish Historical Studies, 27, pp. 250–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nurske, R. (1944). International Currency Experience: Lessons of the Interwar Period. Geneva: League of Nations.Google Scholar
O'Broin, L. (1977). Joseph Brennan, civil servant extraordinary. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 66, pp. 25–37.Google Scholar
O'Broin, L. (1982). No Man's Man: A Biographical Memoir of Joseph Brennan. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.Google Scholar
O'Gráda, C. (1994). Ireland: A New Economic History 1780–1939. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
O'Gráda, C. (1995). Money and banking in the Irish Free State. In Feinstein, C. H. (ed.), Banking, Currency and Finance in Europe between the Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
O'Gráda, C. (1997). A Rocky Road: The Irish Economy since the 1920s. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
O'Halpin, E. (2004). Politics and the state 1922–32. In Hill, J. R. (ed.), A New History of Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Rourke, K. H. (2017). Independent Ireland in a comparative perspective. Irish Economic and Social History, 44, pp. 19–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, S. (1992). The Development of the British Economy 1914–90. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Pratschke, J. L. (1969). The establishing of the Irish pound: a backward glance. Economic and Social Review, 1, pp. 51–75.Google Scholar
Pratschke, J. L. (1985). Economic philosophy and ideology in Ireland. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 74, pp. 145–54.Google Scholar
Sagarra, E. (2018). Envoy Extraordinary, Professor Smiddy of Cork. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.Google Scholar
Sayers, R.S. (1976). The Bank of England 1891–1944. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Singleton, J. (2011). Central Banking in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skidelsky, R. (1992). John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour 1920–1937. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Whitaker, T. K. (1948). Ireland's external assets. Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 2, pp. 192–216.Google Scholar
Whitaker, T. K. (1974). From protection to free trade – the Irish experience. Social Policy and Administration, 2, pp. 95–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, T. K. (1976). The Irish economy since the treaty. Central Bank of Ireland Quarterly Bulletin, pp. 91–103.Google Scholar
Willis, H. P. (1927). Defects of the Federal Reserve. The Banker, 4, pp. 210–18.Google Scholar