Standing room only

The Last Straw: We hardly needed the Central Statistics Office to tell us that the population of Ireland was at a 140-year high.

Anyone can see the place is crowded. Admittedly, this is not just because there are more of us than there used to be; changing lifestyles are a factor too. If you walk down Grafton Street on a Saturday, you can't but be struck by the decline in the old custom whereby Irish people stayed at home occasionally and, I don't know, read a book or something.

Now we're all out and about every waking hour, engaged in the constant struggle to spend money. This is not as easy as Eddie Hobbs claims, because there are queues for everything. But at least I now know why, when you're queuing in Ireland, there's always some guy standing beside you instead of where he should be, behind.

You've never seen him before in your life, yet there he is, flanking you like he's your best friend and oblivious to the hostile looks you're giving him. I used to think his annoying habit was due to impatience; now I realise it's just demographic pressure. If we formed orderly lines in Ireland, like the Swiss, we'd run out of space.

The CSO puts the Republic's population at 4.13 million, which still seems low. But the figures don't include foreign students or seasonal workers, and there is anecdotal evidence that certain categories of returned emigrant (eg the Colombia Three) may have escaped detection at the time of the survey.

On the other hand, home-coming Irish nationals continue to top the "immigration" table. It's only a matter of time before some balladeer writes a classic song about the loneliness and alienation of the returned emigrant. Possible lyric:

"The cock he crew in the morning

He crew both loud and shrill

And I woke in a ribbon-development bungalow in Clare

Many miles from Notting Hill."

The Government has been taking advice lately from Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam in an attempt to boost Ireland's "social capital". But this is wishful thinking. You'd be hard put to bowl alone, or do anything alone, in Ireland. In fact, insofar as we have bowling, it involves people running along public roads, followed by crowds of spectators, in what might otherwise be quiet rural areas.

I know Ireland is still underpopulated by European standards. It just doesn't seem so. Maybe it's the national character. Although there are five million Finns, for example, you'd never think it in Helsinki. The Finnish personality just doesn't seem to take up as much room.

Speaking of social capitals, I've already mentioned Grafton Street. But the crowding in the other capital is even worse. If you were an unsuspecting member of the public on Cork's Grand Parade last Saturday, for example, you were liable to be trampled on by 8,371 people performing - wait for it - the Siege of Ennis. Luckily, there aren't many unsuspecting members of the public in Cork; Cork people usually suspect something. But even so.

I suppose Irish people in search of solitude can always opt for what Lord Byron called the "rapture" of a "lonely shore". Then again, Lord Byron was writing at a time when wetsuits were not common. Try finding a lonely shore in contemporary Ireland, even in winter, and you'll probably have been beaten to it by entire families of rubber-clad bodyboarders, frolicking like mutant penguins.

An obvious cause of Ireland's soaring population is the baby boom. The Coombe Hospital this week reported the busiest summer on record, and again I'm not surprised. I was in a maternity hospital myself not long ago with a woman who asks to remain nameless or this time she really will divorce me, and the rate of arrivals was like rush-hour in Heathrow airport. On the advice of the control tower, we had to circle for ages at 3,000 feet while more urgent cases were cleared for landing.

Inevitably, there were complete strangers standing alongside us in the queue.

Increased longevity is a contributor too. But on that note, I'd like to apologise to anyone who, encouraged by last week's column on indestructible 1960s rock stars, went out and started a specialist life assurance business. As several readers have pointed out, the column underestimated mortality rates among members of The Who: two of whom have now cashed in their policies, and not one as I suggested.

I thought the bass player John Entwistle looked remarkably well during the recent Live 8 concerts. Alas, I'm told he passed on 18 months ago, joining Keith Moon in the great rehab clinic in the sky. As a mark of respect to Who fans, this column will not appear for the next few weeks. It hopes to return in October.