It was quite a different festival when the chief opinion-maker of British theatre, Michael Billington of The Guardian, started coming in the early 1970s. It was basically a social occasion - long lunches in the Shelbourne, tripettes to Wicklow, and though he blushes to mention it, lots of booze. Artistically? "There was usually a new Hugh Leonard, and something big at the Olympia and the Gaiety."

Now he comes principally for the new Irish writing - "there's such intense interest in Irish writing in London" - and this year the big draw was Marina Carr. The festival is, he says, "much more professional", and the city? "I'm staying in Temple Bar and it's teeming. I travelled over with a hen party of, basically, Essex girls." A far cry from those lazy October days in the Shelbourne, indeed. Other international critics braving the fray are from The In- dependent, Variety, The Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald, as well as a team of 18 American critics from industry magazines.

They'll have to agree it's a great festival for the horse-lovers, anyway. During Julius Caesar at the weekend, a black Dublin mare from Joe Gallagher, who provides horses, donkeys and dogs for the stage, stepped out of her box 20 minutes before the show and straight onto the stage - would you get service like that from an actor? Nor from an Andalusian horse - Cascanveces, the nimble white horse due on stage in Carmen from Thursday, travelled from San Daber, through Plymouth to Holyhead, and arrived in Dublin on Saturday, leaving him plenty of time to acclimatise himself in the sumptuous surroundings of the Royal Dublin Society.