On the surface, what happens today bears little relation to the sweeping plans for "comprehensive redevelopment" made for the city in the 1950s and 1960s. All, it seems, is not necessarily now based on the assumption that everything old is to be cleared away, that International Style buildings must be thrown up to make Dublin look like every other city in the world, and that new roads must slice up the city so that motor vehicles can reign supreme. Not outside the docks area, anyway. No: the changes are subtler, more insidious, than that.

The character of whole districts have changed through piecemeal redevelopment. The culture of the pub has given way to the culture of the mega-bar. Individual shops and stores have yielded to the international chains. Bland new hotels, some staggeringly expensive, have mushroomed. Property prices are now on a par with London. Car ownership has rocketed: it was a busy city in 1988, but I do not remember the daily near-gridlock on the streets that you encounter today, which is at last - far too late - forcing the city corporation to plan upgrades to its public transport network. And back then, of course, the docks were still docks - run-down, semi-abandoned, but yet to become the development free-for-all I had witnessed, with at best mixed results, in London, Liverpool and Cardiff.

There have been other changes. I saw a glorious, rollicking Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey Theatre on that first visit: a hoary theatrical standby, of course, but excellent nonetheless. On my latest foray, a week or so ago, friends advised me to look elsewhere. The Abbey has had its troubles, though it may be coming through them now. Come to that, the austere, Miesian brick box of Michael Scott's 1966 theatre sprouted a portico in 1990 and now has plans for a radical Millennial revamp, inside and out. Central to the success of this enterprise will be the reconfiguration of the auditorium. At present, actors and audience just have too much space between them - it is difficult to get emotionally involved, which is the essence of all theatre but particularly, surely, of this one.