Glimpses of the hidden lives of the superior castes

Lords and Ladles (RTE1) Man Booker Prize (BBC News)

IONLY learned recently that the map of Africa with which we are all familiar is actually a smaller representation of the continent than it should be, that it is kept in these proportions through a combination of map-making tradition and cultural wrongheadedness, or just because it looks better.

I also learned of late, through various RTE programmes, that the same can be said of the stately homes of Ireland. Certainly from looking at shows such as Nationwide ,or Lords and Ladles, you discover that there are far more grand houses out there than you ever thought possible — there was one in Westmeath featured recently, and I am from Westmeath, and I never heard of this place.

They are everywhere, it seems, these great mansions of the Anglo-Irish. In the mind’s eye most Irish people probably saw these wonderful estates as very large in themselves, but very small as a proportion of the broader territory of Ireland. I’m starting to wonder if maybe it should be the other way round, if the State for reasons of propaganda decreed all maps of Ireland should be distorted in such a way that these huge territories should be cartographically reduced to little enclaves. Just to keep up our morale.

Or are Mary Kennedy and s Noigme a uer s only people who have found s? through Ireland do they just e buildings which were hitherto hidden from the rest of us?

I don’t think so, I think that Ireland has somehow always known they were there, but for some reason we couldn’t admit it to ourselves — likewise with Lords and Ladles, which has chefs Derry Clarke, Catherine Fulvio and Paul Flynn re-creating ancient banquets at these wondrous establishments, and talking to their owners who might explain in their finest Anglo-Irish accents that a particular room was used by one of their ancestors to perform the ceremonies associated with this religion which she had started.

And there, I suppose, is a difference between them and us — off the top of my head I have encountered very few of the native Irish who have started their own religion in the basement, whereas for these folks it seemed like a fairly unexceptional lifestyle choice. But the true mystery, is how they have occupied what now seems like 75pc of the land of Ireland, while remaining somehow invisible.

**** CLEARLY we are still fascinated by these glimpses of the lives of a superior caste, a service which the BBC performs for its viewers every year with its coverage of the Man Booker Prize ceremony at London’s Guildhall.

I often wonder what this looks like to someone living in a council estate in Hull, this scene which unfolds on the BBC news programmes each year of these beautifully-bred creatures at what seems like this gigantic dinner party, inhabitants of a world that is as distant from the denizens of Hull as the Anglo-Irish were from poor Paddy.

Clearly these people who live in this enchanted place, this Bookerland, have no need to be having much dealings with anyone outside of their realm, they are as self-contained and as self-perpetuating as the gentry themselves, but of course they still sort-of have to make a living. Which they tend to do, by teaching others how to write these fictions which define this world of theirs.

This year’s winner — an American called Paul Beatty — is indeed a teacher of Creative Writing at a university. So was last year’s winner. And if you’re thinking of having a punt on next year’s winner, you may find that the smart money is heading in that general direction too.

I did actually read all six of last year’s Booker shortlist, and I found them quite impressive in many ways, but for the most part they did not move me greatly, or change my world.

Mostly they left me with this impression that I couldn’t quite define, but which has become clearer to me over time — what I had been reading, essentially, was the work of six people who were sitting an exam, an Entrance Exam, if you like, for this night at the Guildhall. They got in.