IT MAY have seemed that the apocalyptic horsemen of Irish publishing were set to romp home this Christmas with their books about what brought us to our current state of chassis, but they’ve all been pipped at the post by an unexpected dark horse in a bright red jacket: Mr Tayto.

Though books by Shane Ross, Fintan O’Toole and Matt Cooper remain in the top 10 non-fiction titles, they are being roundly trumped at the tills by Mr Tayto, whose autobiography sold 7,043 copies last week.

The hardback book about Ireland’s favourite crisp character beat all others in both the fiction and non-fiction categories, prompting Mr Tayto, speaking through his agent Frank Kelly, to refer to himself as “the book world’s answer to Rage Against the Machine”. Mr Tayto may have won by several furlongs, but in a closer race among the remaining horsemen, Senator Shane Ross’s The Bankers: How the Banks Brought Ireland to Its Knees led the field. Ross’s book sold 4,381 copies, giving him a comfortable lead over Fintan O’Toole. The latter’s book Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger sold 2,894 copies, almost neck and neck with Matt Cooper’s Who Really Runs Ireland?: The Story of the Elite Who Led Ireland from Bust to Boom . . . and Back Again, which sold 2,821.

Though these latest figures from Nielsen BookScan represent the week ending December 19th, Stephen Boylan, books purchasing manager at Eason, confirmed that the trend continues on into Christmas week with Ross’s lead likely to increase following Monday’s Prime Time Investigates examination of the banking system.

“The one that made a break for us in the last few days would be The Bankers, probably on the back of the Prime Time Investigates show,” said Mr Boylan.

“There’s been a huge market for these kinds of books. They seem to be catching the zeitgeist.”