Centre with the mostest opens to acclaim

Into every life a little rain must fall. It crowned the top of the things-to-see list, but alas the men's creche at the new Dundrum Town Centre had not yet opened.

The spectacle of a clatter of wannabe Woosnams practising their golf swings in their own custom-built creche would surely have been a crushing rejoinder to the rather violent woman in the Café Paul Rankin who hissed: "These places bring out the worst in people."

And that was only because a man had tried to jump ahead of her in the 20-minute queue for a tolerable piece of quiche and salad (€7.10) under the stairwells opposite a lift shaft.

Nods of weary recognition could be seen up and down the queue as people exchanged war stories and teething problems. There was the woman who had queued for half an hour for the single functioning ATM. Another who asked customer services for directions to the Rankin cafe and was told insistently that it hadn't "made the opening" and that, if it had, it was on level 3. (It was actually on level 1, at the opposite end, and most definitely open).

Now this might sound rather petty until you grasp the size of the place. Getting lost or being sent astray in Europe's largest cathedral of consumption can make a serious dent in a person's will to live.

After three hours of hiking in the wrong shoes without the fresh air, focus, scenery or feeling of achievement, a howling sense of grievance can take hold. If a man can have his golf-swinging facilities in a shopping centre, why can't a woman have a lousy little golf buggy?

Still, it can be difficult to remain curmudgeonly in the presence of such a mighty team effort to get a vast enterprise up and running: 4,000 on construction, 3,000 in sales and administration - the richly-varied population of a small town.

Ellena Doak, from Delgany, is a part-time sales assistant in East, a clothes shop for the "age 35 to 55 professional woman". A well-travelled vice-president of a biotechnology company in a previous existence, Ellena now combines the school run to Ballinteer for her 10-year-old son, who has autism, with her new working hours.

She stands by, a little nervously, on her first day in a new role, waiting for the thousands of shoppers and sightseers expected to flood in. According to Don Nugent, the centre's director, 95 per cent of the first-phase space, around 900,000 square feet, was trading on Day 1.

Anyone who heard the radio reports about "mental" traffic and queues all the way down Dundrum main street at 10 o'clock would have been astounded to turn up at 11 and find an unimpeded run into the gleaming car parks directly beneath the shops, guided in by swathes of courteous traffic staff.

The green lights at ceiling height signifying individual free spaces are a touch of genius. A 30-second walk, up an escalator, and you are in the perfumed expanses of the House of Fraser, a new entry to the State.

It was probably H&M, however, another new kid on the block, which was yesterday's main attraction. Though not reaching the same dimensions as the Paris branch, it was great to have it, commented a well-travelled young woman, who was pleased generally with the new centre: "It's cool. It's like the American shopping centres, it's got a different buzz . . ."

H&M - "high fashion and inexpensive", according to store manager Trevor Mahon - employs about 70 staff, all but three of them Irish.

Regrettably, H&M weren't serving champagne, unlike Principles and Marks & Spencer. Nor were they offering balloons like Penneys or free belts and scarves with a purchase like A-Wear, although the latter came at some personal risk.

Julie Redmond and her friend Geraldine, two thirtysomethings from Stillorgan, found themselves "jammed up against a desk" in the crush and had to call a security guard to release them.

They liked the centre well enough. "But I prefer my Henry Street," said Geraldine, as though talking about a family pet. "I go for my Arnotts, Roches and Hickeys. They're my places."

Orla O'Brien and Regina Mongan, from south Co Dublin, were a bit deflated by the lack of opening-day pizzazz. As former air hostesses, they've seen mall openings where you could win a car a day.

What they came for yesterday was "balloons, bells and whistles . . . celebrities to meet, books being launched, designers talking about their clothes". Yvonne Keating probably wasn't quite what they had in mind.

But Don Nugent says that the "soft launch" was exactly as planned and that the hard stuff will come later, with the opening of the groovy golf-swingers' creche, the cinema/theatre complex, the choreographed fountain display and - of course - Harvey Nichols in the autumn.