Racing's hot properties

TheLastStraw: I'm sure every Irish sports fan rejoiced in the success of Numbersixvalverde at Aintree. I know we all thrilled to the heroics of his pilot, "Slippers" Madden, son of "Boots" Madden (and reportedly hoping one day to be the father of a third-generation jockey called "Socks"). Those of us who had a tenner each way on the winner would have cheered nearly as loudly without a financial motive.

Yet even after collecting my €157.50, I remained troubled by the horse's name. As everyone now knows, Numbersixvalverde is the address of the owner's holiday home in Portugal. But it's not the bragging I mind. I'm sure the owner is a lovely man and didn't mean to convey the message: "I own a horse and a house in the Algarve." It's just that naming horses after property sets a worrying precedent.

Yes, there's a strong link between the economic boom - soaring house prices and all - and racing's domination by Irish-owned horses. But if these address names catch on, you can see where it will lead. Soon the competition won't be about horses at all: "And they're over the last at Fairyhouse, and its Numberninekillineyhill just ahead of Numberthreedalkeyvillas. They're both magnificently located, and it looks like a two-house race. But wait! Here comes Numberelevensorrentoterrace..."

Regular readers may guess that my view is coloured by the begrudgery of someone whose bloodstock interests extend to six per cent of a greyhound. I plead guilty.

As it happens, our syndicate bought a new dog just last week. But inflation has done its worst even in the greyhound sector, so we couldn't afford anything at the upper end of the market, or the middle.

If our new dog were a property investment, he would be described as a "starter home". The Luas wouldn't stop anywhere near him. He would be "deceptively spacious", probably because there was no indoor toilet to take up room. An unscrupulous estate agent might even call him "charming".

I USED TO think success as a nation had gone to our heads. Then I read about Jeanette Winterson's Irish plumber and relaxed. In a recent article for the London Times, the novelist wrote: "My plumber likes to recite Yeats to me while he lays his pipes and he likes to remind me that in Ireland they will divert a road around a fairy oak, not because they believe in fairies, but because they believe in believing in fairies - as he puts it."

So there you have it: the old ways are not dead yet, apparently. I make no comment here on fairies (or on road planning). But until that article, I never truly believed there was such a thing as an Irish plumber. I hope Jeanette Winterson caught him before he disappeared.

WHEN BERTIE AHERN called for "a great national conversation on what it means to be Irish", my heart sank. I wondered were we the only people on Earth always struggling with the issue of what it means to be us.

Did the people of, say, Norway have great national conversations about what it means to be Norwegian? I doubted it. Why can we not just accept that we were Irish, that we will always be Irish, and that the recovery process will be one day at a time.

Then I thought about Bertie's call again and I said to myself, "let's not be hasty". If the Government were to put this Great National Conversation (GNC) on a formal footing, like the Forum on Europe, the idea might have potential. Modesty forbids me from proposing myself as chairman of such a body. But already in this column, we've had what one could loosely describe as a grand national conversation. I'm sure we could make the small step up.

We'd need a headquarters - Dublin Castle, preferably. But the GNC would also tour widely, meeting the people in venues such as Mulligan's, Doheny & Nesbitt, the Long Hall, and so on. The work would be divided into modules, with titles such as "Bono: Has he finally lost the run of himself?" Or "From Boots to Slippers: the likely effects of long-term economic success on the Irish work ethic."

The GNC would also have the power to subpoena witnesses. Top of my list would be Jeanette Winterson's plumber (if she can still find him). Our work might take years. Even then, there would be no guarantee that we would ever learn exactly what it means to be Irish. But if we finally steered the national conversation off the subject of property, at least we'd have achieved something.