Entering Gemini is to feel like Alice, falling down out of everyday life into the surreal world of Wonderland, where nothing is quite what it seems. Looking down from the pavement, the basement of this north Dublin street looks like any ordinary net-curtained flat. Descend the steps and you enter one of Ireland's few, but increasing number of transvestite clubs. There are currently three advertised in In Dublin: Gemini, Amanda Barry's and Transformation, which opened a month ago.

Transformation is the sixth outlet of a British chain of shops catering specially for the transvestite market and the first one to open in Ireland. Angela Helleuell, who's here temporarily to oversee the Dublin launch, says there was an "overwhelming Irish response to the English mail-order catalogue".

This indicated that there is a huge demand for the service it offers, she adds.

Transformation is primarily a shop and 80 per cent of the products sold in it are own label. Some of the items on sale include size 12 court shoes with steel reinforcements "to withstand greater weight pressure"; female masks which pull over the face so that, according to the catalogue, "even with a beard or moustache, you can still look convincingly feminine"; corsets "to achieve the hourglass figure envied by all women and desired by all men"; and the "Miracle Deluxe Vagina" made from flesh-coloured latex.

More than 300 men have contacted Transformation since it opened and the phone rings frequently with inquiries during my visit. Helleuell reports that Transformation was visited by a local nun last week, who wished them well and commented "there's a need for your service in our society".

Gemini was created a year ago by owner Bernie Andrews who was persuaded by transvestites she knew of the need for such a club. For a flat fee of £45 per visit, clients can stay for any length of time between the weekday opening and closing hours of 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. The fee includes use of clothes and make-up.

There is a core clientele of about 500 at Gemini. Numbered among these are "airline pilots, doctors, bricklayers, solicitors, farmers, gardai and Army officers". Any well-known people from public life? "At least five," Bernie smiles.

Gemini also attracts men here on business from Britain, who see the ads and phone for the address. There are also regulars - "big businessmen" - who use the club as a place to conduct business while in drag, via their mobile phones. The main club room, with its couches, pictures, small barcounter, high stools, occasional tables and perfumed air, is reminiscent of many diverse places. It could be a beauty saloon, with that anticipatory atmosphere of forthcoming small indulgences, but the magazines on the tables are back copies of The World Of Transvestites. It could be a women's group coffee-morning in someone's chi-chi living room, but the people wearing pearls and high heels are men.

During the afternoon, the doorbell rings and men arrive dressed in their usual clothes, to be greeted by their male names. When they re-emerge from one of the club's two dressing-rooms, they are referred to as "she" and addressed by the female names they have chosen for their alter egos. Fiona, Jessica, Eve, Pauline, Vivienne. They have all named themselves after women who had a special place in their lives - usually mothers and ex-girlfriends.

Gemini is run by two women: Bernie and Natalie. They each act as hostess, barmaid and dresser. Along with the two dressing rooms, there is also a room lined with rails of clothes and underwear, racks of shoes, baskets of costume jewellery and stands of wigs. Visitors can either use these clothes or bring their own and store them there.

A helpline is also run from the club, giving informal counselling and advice to transvestites.

Clearly adored by their clients, they call everyone "pet" and fuss over whether everyone has something to drink; they admire outfits and disappear at intervals to help in the dressing rooms. They're a bit like nurses doing ward-duty; that professional affection of carers tending to people in vulnerable situations. During the afternoon, a huge bouquet of pink and white flowers are delivered for one of the staff. They are from a "very satisfied customer" who visited for the first time the previous day and had her nails done.

Fiona is 52 and can still remember the first item of female clothing she wore. "A little pink dress that belonged to my younger sister." Fiona was then five years old. "I knew instinctively I should keep it a secret. But you can't give up being a transvestite. You don't choose to be one, you just are one. And there's nothing sexual about it for me," she insists.

Before Fiona married she told her future spouse. She has not, however, told their teenage children and does not intend to. She admits she is afraid of how they would respond.

Jessica started cross-dressing when she was 13. She is now 21. "I like feeling like a woman and being someone else." Outside Gemini, nobody knows that she cross-dresses, and she is not aware of any other transvestites her own age. She used to dress up in her sister's clothes when everyone was out of the house and welcomes the opportunity to cross-dress now in the social and supportive atmosphere of the club.

Jessica is wearing fishnet stockings and suspenders, red satin knickers and a crotch-skimming skin-tight black dress. The dress is slit and laced together at either side. It's the classic fantasy hooker look.

THE dress sense in Gemini is eclectic. Pauline is 35 and divorced. She's over from England on business for a few days and saw the ad. It's her first time at Gemini. She has been crossdressing for 10 years. During her three-year marriage, she never revealed this fact to her spouse and nor has she told her current partner. "Hadn't the guts," she says simply. It started as a fetish, she explains. "Ladies clothes are more exciting than men's."

During the afternoon Pauline changes three times. She starts out in a full-length evening dress of mulberry taffeta, then a mismatched blue, short-sleeved suit worn over a long-sleeved shirt. Her third change is into a frilly white blouse, red jacket and black skirt. She is admired each time.

"You're a proper little lady now," Fiona says, when Pauline reappears in this last outfit, smiling shyly. It's not unlike watching a child delightedly plunder a wardrobe, certain of indulgent approval each time. And perhaps this is the truly odd thing about Gemini: the feeling that everyone leaves opinions and critical faculties at the door, in the effort to be accepted and supported.

Vivienne perches bird-like on a couch in the corner. At 49, she is a dead ringer for a younger Nancy Reagan. She sounds female too, unlike the others. It is an uncanny likeness and one not achieved merely by use of wig and clothes. Vivienne is a transsexual.

"I'm four," she says with a giggle. "I had the operation done four years ago." For Vivienne, cross-dressing was "only a small step along the road to what I really wanted. But I would be an unusual case."

Vivienne thinks the transvestite scene in Ireland has exploded in the last seven years. "The scene in Dublin has outstripped Manchester. It spread from London, up to Manchester and then came across the water from Liverpool." It sounds like the arrival of a post-modern emigrant era. "It's so much easier to cross-dress in Ireland now and to be open about it," she insists.

Looking around the room, it would seem that this last statement is only partly true. It may be easier to cross-dress today within the wider context of Ireland's more tolerant society, but within the tighter circles of Irish families, there are still many secrets yet to be disclosed.