Madam, – I was delighted to hear that the Anglo-Irish author JG Farrell won the Lost Man Booker Prize with his novel Troubles on May 19th. In the subsequent media coverage there have been various locations, most notably Wicklow or Wexford, suggested for the location of the Majestic Hotel where the novel is set.
I would suggest that the novel is located in Co Waterford. The evidence for this comes from a letter from JG Farrell to Carol Drisko on November 2nd, 1968, published in JG Farrell in His Own Words Selected Letters and Diariesedited by Lavinia Greacen (Cork University Press, 2009). The letter reads, "I'd been planning to take a trip down to Waterford to scan the area my novel [ Troubles] is supposed to be taking place in." The inspiration for the Majestic Hotel came from the ruin of the Ocean View Hotel on Block Island, which is just south of Rhode Island US, where JG Farrell visited in May 1967.