THE Irish Times Literature Prizes 1997 were presented last night at the RDS by former President of Ireland, Dr Patrick Hillery, who originally launched the awards in 1988.
Major T.B. McDowell, chairman of The Irish Times Trust Ltd and The Irish Times Ltd, welcomed the guests and extended a special welcome to those who had travelled from outside of Dublin and from across the Irish Sea and the Atlantic.
He said Dr Hillery had launched the prizes in 1988 and the first prize-giving was in 1989. This time they had difficulty in inviting someone to present the prize as Dr Hillery had set an example as President in doing so. Mrs Mary Robinson had continued that example during her term of office.
This time, Major McDowell said, they did not know who would be in the Aras and they had asked Dr Hillery. Major McDowell said when he rang Dr Hillery he asked how they should introduce him, was it to be "a previous President", an "an ex-President", but, of course, not "late President". Dr Hillery had replied "Paddy, for a start".
Major McDowell said he was glad Dr Hillery had set such a good example when he was President. He hoped we were blessed with a future President who would contribute so much in the right way as did Dr Hillery and his wife, Dr Maeve Hillery. Dr Hillery congratulated The Irish Times for the vision it showed in 1988 when, with Aer Lingus, it established the prizes to encourage the pursuit of excellence in literature.
The award scheme was a worthy objective to encourage, support and reward the creators of literature. The financial award, which was generous, gave the winners the opportunity of concentrating on their art and "learning their trade", as Yeats considered all poets should do.
Since announcing the prizes in 1988, The Irish Times had shown further evidence of its commitment by deciding to go on alone when Aer Lingus withdrew. It was a brave and generous decision.
The standing of the winners of the prizes among authors would be increased and the esteem held for them by the general public would go on. Dr Hillery hoped it would give them courage to continue writing to add to the bulk of high-class literature in this country. Seamus Deane had won both the Irish Literature prize and the International Fiction prize and this was unprecedented. It was the result of the judgments of two quite distinct panels and they were to be praised.
Dr Hillery said that Paul Muldoon, for New Selected Poems, and Declan Kiberd, for In- venting Ireland, were the other winners. The manner in which these writers continued to write was a source of great pride to him and everybody, he said. To all those on the short list and all those who were considered he gave his warmest congratulations and support.
The editor of The Irish Times, Mr Conor Brady, said it was a great pleasure to have Dr Hillery and Dr Maeve Hillery back after almost a decade. Seeing Dr Hillery there almost made him feel 10 years younger and took him back to the days when "a President wore the trousers". Mr Brady said it was his privilege to introduce the two chairmen of the judging panels, Mr Jack Miles and Ms Antonia A.S. Byatt.
There was a branch of mathematics called probabilities which calculated the likelihood of events coming together by coincidence or chance. Maybe if he understood the theory, it would explain how two panels of judges separately came to name the same book, Reading in the Dark, for two prizes.
He said Mr Miles, chairman of the judges panel for the International Fiction Prize, was a native of Chicago and a winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for biography for God - A Biography. A.S. Byatt was chairman of the judges for the Irish Literature Prize. She had won the Booker Prize and The Irish Times Literature Prize for her novel Possession. Mr Miles, announcing the international winner, said every year in Britain a prize was presented for best novel except all those written by Americans. That was the Booker Prize. Every year, in America, a prize was presented for best novel except all those written by non-Americans. That was the Pulitzer.
Now Britain, America, and, by the way, the Irish, might also compete and this prize might lead the way in transcending literary insularity. For conviviality, efficiency and style, The Irish Times international fiction award was truly without peer.
Mr Miles said Seamus Deane in writing Reading in the Dark had set himself a standard unsparingly high and had impressed and humbled the judges. Mr Deane said he remembered his first contact with the prizes was when he was a judge in 1989 and he did not then believe the line "judge not, lest thou thyself be judged". That The Irish Times and the committee had chosen his novel had done him a great honour.
Ms Byatt, announcing the Irish non-fiction winner, said she remembered the occasion when she won with entire pleasure, and there were very few literary occasions she remembered with entire pleasure. Since then, she and The Irish Times had become friends.
She said Inventing Ireland connected Irish literature to English literature, and the reader discovered something new on every page. It was an amazing work of criticism.
Prof Kiberd said he was dumbfounded when, a few weeks ago, he heard he was on a shortlist and was even more amazed when the news came that he had won.
Ms Byatt then announced the Irish Poetry winner. She said the Irish wrote better poetry in English than the English did. The prize went to Paul Muldoon for New Selected Poems, whose voice was more precisely his own. Mr Muldoon said he was struck by the generosity of The Irish Times. He knew how difficult a task it must have been for the judging panel and if he was a judge, he was not sure he would have come to that conclusion. Mr Muldoon said it was the most important award he had ever had. The last prize, the Irish Fiction winner, was also announced by Ms Byatt. She said she had rarely read a better constructed novel than Reading in the Dark. It was a perfect work of art, and terrifying.
Major McDowell, summing up, expressed his gratitude to the people who had spoken succinctly and pithily. He thanked Mr Gerry Smyth and Mr Gerry Kavanagh of The Irish Times and also the RDS. Major McDowell said The Irish Times was going to stay with the prize and it would keep it going.
Finally, he said he wanted to applaud the editor of The Irish Times, Mr Brady, whose concept it was to have these literary awards.