There are few taboos left in Irish life; or at least, there are actions, proclivities and beliefs which are still taboo, but they are now acknowledged and discussed, and not just brushed under the carpet. You might be frowned upon if you're, say, a cross-dressing, father-of-three priest, but you won't just be ignored. While any mention of the thorny issue of abortion tends to bring forth a rash of absolutist statements and cast-iron certainties, it is at least being debated, if not always in the most tolerant of fashions. However, there is one last topic which you would need to have a nerve of steel to bring up, and about which rational discussion seems impossible, and that is the issue of children and their behaviour.
Last weekend, I was enjoying that most decadent and tiger-ish of institutions, Sunday brunch in a city centre restaurant. Few things are as enjoyable as spending a Sunday morning with friends reading newspapers, eating Eggs Benedict and sipping a Bloody Mary, rather than going to church, or feeling guilty about not going to church, or feeling that you should be doing something worthwhile to compensate for not even thinking you should be in church. This kind of self-conscious, stolen enjoyment is all too rare and as such is one of those pleasures to be prized beyond measure.
However, last Sunday, like so many Sundays, the whole thing was thrown into jeopardy by the presence of a family at the next table. A baby stood on his seat and bellowed about eggs, while an overly-mobile toddler performed a Grand Prix around the restaurant, banging my chair on every circuit.
An older child obviously felt in danger of being left out of the cacophony, so launched a loud and stinging debate on the relative merits of Pepsi over Coke, with frequent reference to the fact that "You're not listening to me Daa-ad". Damn right, he wasn't. After years of practice, both parents had obviously perfected the art of ignoring their children completely in a public place. Every now and then, Mum looked up from her paper, and said "Stop it you lot" while Dad paused to retrieve his arm from the toddler and send him on a victory lap of my chair.
It's a scene with which I'm becoming increasingly familiar. I've witnessed huge hullabaloos in every airport departure lounge I've been in, as parents earnestly attempt to teach their young ones about the need to whine loudly and kick the seat in front of them simultaneously once they board the plane.
At a small theatre last month, an actress who thought she was delivering an hour-long monologue, discovered it was actually an ensemble piece, with the other parts played by three eight-year-olds in the front row loudly discussing who had got the most purple-wrapped ones when the box of Roses was divvied out.
Then there's the rather sinister invasion of those three-wheeled prams that look like something you'd off-road in - those tractor-style wheels are obviously particularly vital, what with the state of Grafton Street these days, and the pressing need to rid the world of Achilles tendons.
The number of children around these days is tantamount to a small invasion, an invasion that the individual is unable to control in any way, because as anyone who has dared to suggest that children should be seen and not heard has found out, the pro-child lobby is a particularly ferocious one.
I've thought about writing about noisy children before and have always put it off because I'm a coward and I know from experience the kind of reaction you get to expressing irritation about children and their behaviour. The mildest reaction is a kind of smug indifference from parents who think I'll change my tune quick enough when I have my own brood to man-handle around town.
But there's much worse than that. Even the most reasonable of people start to foam at the mouth and to ring daytime talk shows if you express the opinion that children shouldn't be allowed to shout in restaurants or run around shops or climb on you on an aircraft.
If you dare to come out with something stronger and observe that children shouldn't be allowed into really posh restaurants or to fly business class or be breast fed in the Dail (and I'm not saying that I hold these views myself, honest), you can expect vitriol of a type more usually reserved for those who express a love of beating up 80-year-old women.
There is a self-righteousness about the pro-child lobby, which to my mind is the most hideous thing about it. Those who question children's behaviour are made to feel that they are somehow unnatural, a Lady Macbeth figure who would sooner dash a child's brain out than be disturbed while eating their foie gras sandwiches.
If you're surrounded by a posse of noise-molesters in a restaurant, woe betide you if you ask their parents to keep them under control, or get caught giving the kids a rather narrow-eyed stare. You will be regarded as if you just asked them whether you could gnaw on their baby's elbow, while even your childless friends glance at you oddly, as though they had just spotted a hitherto unnoticed dark side to your sunny personality.
I'm not the intolerant child-hater I might seem, I'm really not. At the risk of sounding like one of those closet homophobes who insist that some of their best friends are gay, I'd like to point out that I did voluntary work in an orphanage in Guatemala, worked as an au pair in Paris and am not shy about covering my face with my hair and pretend to be a yeti if I think it will raise even a giggle from a small child.
I remember well being in charge of a baby and a toddler who would just not stop crying; feeling the glares of others as the shrieks increased in volume, convinced that everyone must think I was a giving them sneaky pinches on the sly. I don't believe that life stops once you have children, and I'm only too aware that they are a natural and very wonderful part of life, rather than an inconvenience.
What I object to is the fact that nobody dares to update the rules, now that child-rearing habits and customs have changed, for fear of being considered a grumpy, intolerant misanthropist who wants to drag child care back to the days when spanking was considered a respectable past-time. More and more parents are working full time, either from choice or necessity, and if you don't get to see your children much during the week, I can understand wanting or needing to bring them everywhere with you - to the theatre, out to dinner, to a gallery or clothes-shopping - in your time off.
Exposing children to new experiences, be it Tenerife, modern art or the prevalence of body-piercing among adolescents, is something to be valued and encouraged.
But just when did it become acceptable to allow children to behave exactly as they want? Of course babies cry, of course children whinge and of course siblings fight, but these are things that should be dealt with or taken into account rather than ignored because "kids will be kids".
Treating the kids to brunch might seem like a good plan, but too often, parents are actually treating every one else to their kids for brunch. It may well have seemed like a good idea to bring those three little girls to the theatre, but surely someone should have foreseen the fact that a rather obscure one-woman show might bore them a little even if they were given a large and noisy box of chocolates as distraction. Was this really a good parent introducing their child to a cultural experience, or a rather selfish adult choosing to ignore the cultural experience of everyone else in the theatre that night? Unfortunately, I'm never likely to get a satisfactory answer because, for the moment at least, I would never really dare to ask to the question.