gombeen

Gombeen man; a usurer who lends money to small farmers and others of like means, at ruinous interest.

For the name of this grisly and terribly real spectre is gombeen; which, in the Irish tongue, signifies usury.

This poor innocent was charging just 60 per cent., but his terms were lavishly liberal as compared with those of the gombeen man.

At Burtonport we found the “Gombeen man,” of Dungloe, represented by a very large “store.”

The priest and the “Gombeen man” deal with them on the old principle of “freedom of contract.”