Dublin Zoo, or simply the "ah-zoo", has been one of the abiding pleasures of my life. From the days of short pants, it has been one of the few places where I would always want to go.
My parents and elder siblings all had an interest in wildlife but I was the fanatic. At the age of four I decided to build my own ah-zoo in the garden of a cottage on the Sugarloaf Mountain.
I used loose ends and broken bricks to house the hippos, toucans and anacondas which were going to arrive in the post, any day now, one endless summer. The local postman indulged my fantasy, assuring me repeatedly that the animals I had ordered were in quarantine in Bray sorting office.
Those hippos never did get beyond Kilmacanogue, and trips to the real ah-zoo had to be organised more often than ever to ease my broken heart. I remember one kindly keeper, Pat Kenny's father, I think, lifting me on to the marvellously strange platform of an elephant's back, and the ground rolling away thrillingly beneath me. I remember the reptile house, from which I used to emerge draped with pythons and boa constrictors, an impressive trick and one which must have infuriated my parents since I was too scared to go to sleep if I could see a spider in my bedroom.
A child can learn all sorts of dramatic lessons at the zoo. You can get first-class sex education from watching mating tapirs (though a small boy needs someone to explain that the male's genital dimensions are not mandatory for happy coupling).
There are more abstract lessons as well. I remember my awe when the first rhinos arrived, but my grandmother imperiously tried to cool my ardour. She declared sniffily that she could not understand how God had had such bad taste as to create "those ugly beasts". At that moment, a window began to open. If I had to choose between Nature and the God of good taste (and impeccable behaviour), Nature (and bad behaviour) were going to win out every time.
Time and travel parted me from the zoo in early adulthood, but in 1988 I bought a house in Stoneybatter and found that the zoo was virtually in my back garden. I could, did and do go as often as I like.
Twelve years ago the zoo was still recognisable as the ah-zoo of my childhood, and many of its flaws were more obvious to me. Animals clearly driven neurotic by cramped and smelly cages and a general air of decay made it a depressing place. It was not that I had developed any objections to zoos as such. Many "animal-lovers" never seem to notice that life in the wild can be a lot nastier, shorter and more brutal than life behind bars.
In any case, the educational and conservational benefits of good zoos surely outweigh any cruelty inherent in confinement. Obviously, however, the conditions should be the best possible. That goes for the animals, and for the people who want to see them.
In the 1990s Dublin Zoo made huge strides towards improving things for its captive primates on their impressive new island homes but failed pitifully to better the lot of the uncaged homo sapiens who visits them.
Yes, the visitor does benefit from seeing the animals better displayed and in better conditions. Yes, the new African Plains project is an even bigger advance in this direction. The impressive landscaping and planting of the last few years have also made the "gardens" bit of the zoo's title a reality at last. But it is in the ancillary services to the visitor, not in the quality of the primary product, that the zoo seems unwilling to enter the 21st century.
This can be apparent from the moment you arrive at the shiny new entrance. Queues for members and non-members are poorly organised. When members bring more people than are covered by their membership, for whom they naturally have to pay, the system, such as it is, breaks down. "Oh, just go on in then," a gatekeeper barked at a member in front of us, who was politely objecting to being shuffled between queues for a third time.
The food is often as bad, and as badly organised, as the service. There is a dysfunctional queuing system in the small new outlet in the African Plains, and while the food there is more appetising than most of what is on offer in the older restaurant complex, it is still pretty limited.
A golden opportunity has been missed here. There should obviously be lots of inexpensive food quickly available in a place which attracts so many families. But there is no reason why the zoo should not also cater for those with the time and money to relax over long lunches and a drink or two in such pleasing surroundings.
Venues like the National Gallery have long recognised the multiple benefits of good franchising. A good restaurant attracts visitors who might not have come otherwise, and could come again for the paintings as well as the food. It provides an additional feel-good factor for those who would come anyway. And it can be a lucrative source of revenue, which the venue can channel back to its core activity. Why could the same not be done at the zoo?
Karen McDonnell, the zoo's marketing director, says a better restaurant is planned for the next phase of expansion, but it seems we will have to wait about five more years.
The visitors themselves are partly to blame, says Ms McDonnell, for the unacceptable level of litter, some of it due to the clearly prohibited feeding of animals. "We could not have anticipated that the public would use the new lake in the African Plains as a litter bin," she says.
Among the rubbish which defaced its water margin on our recent visit was a floating uprooted sign. It read: "Please do not throw your litter in the water." No doubt the zoo staff sometimes feel like locking up the humans with some of the more carnivorous inmates.
The zoo, however, is entirely responsible for the content of its shops, which are another major disappointment. They are stocked to the roof with souvenirs, some of them tacky, others (especially in the African Plains shop) vastly overpriced. There is plenty of high-quality, wildlife-related merchandise on the market but it is hard to find in the zoo.