It was on during the play's fourth, final and crucial monologue. There was a party of women in the front row. And one of their mobile phones started to ring. And ring. And ring.

The Gate is a small theatre and Fiennes could see the people in the front row very clearly. The owner of the mobile phone decided to bluff it out, because if she reached for her phone, Fiennes would surely see her. And so it rang. And rang.

And rang.

Eventually, to the consternation of both the audience and staff backstage, Fiennes pointed to the woman and said: "Turn that f***ing thing off."

Backstage colleagues wondered if the actor would be able to get back into character after this interruption of his 6 March performance. Out front, the star smiled at the culprit and joked, "I'll heal you later."

"Which was very nice of him, " said one member of the audience. "Because that woman didn't deserve it."

Oh dear. Other people's mobile phones arouse fury when they shatter an atmosphere. Particularly an atmosphere you have paid good money to enjoy.

At the Abbey's The Bacchae of Bagdhad last Tuesday, a mobile phone rang in the opening minutes of the performance. And rang. And rang.

And rang.

On Wednesday, at the Project, Rough Magic's production of The Taming Of The Shrew was remarkable because not one phone rang in the first half of the show. Or in the second half. In fact the silence was kind of eerie. And the Project does not even send out someone at the interval, carrying a sign reminding patrons to switch off their mobiles, as the Gate has taken to doing recently. The entire run of Faith Healer . . . which ends this week . . . has been bedevilled by mobiles.

The Gate's front-of-house manager, Vincent Brightling, started carrying the sign around the auditorium on his own initiative, "Just to remind people, in a less intense way, " he says. Faith Healer transfers to Broadway next month, and already a New York stage manager has said she will adopt Brightling's methods. "We're really labouring the point with this show, which is intense and intimate, " says Brightling. But Fiennes is not the only Gate actor to have protested to an audience. "At the end of A View From The Bridge, which had a larger cast, actor Christopher Mahoney came out to take his bow and then pretended to take a call on his mobile, " remembers Brightling.

In fact, mobile phones have become such a problem, that some Irish theatres, including the Gate, are considering investing in technology that will immobilise phones while they are located on their premises.

Mobile phones are not just a theatrical headache. "I've had people in the front bench at a funeral answer the phone and start talking, " says one Dublin parish priest. "The chief mourners, yes. You start off every ceremony now asking people to turn their phones to 'silent'. You don't ask them to turn their phones off, because then they get upset. It's like their life's blood is being taken away."

This experienced clergyman says: "It's rarely you'd have a funeral or a wedding now without them going off. It's standard at holy communions to have people going out to answer their phones. I was at a funeral out of Dublin and the undertaker who was carrying the coffin, his mobile went off. He couldn't reach it. I'm sure he wanted to answer it."

According to the Sunday Tribune's clerical source, no directive on mobile phones has been issued from on high, and the communications office at archbishop's house in Dublin could not find any record of one, saying that policy on mobiles is left to individual churches and priests.

However, councillor Michael Gleeson of the South Kerry Independent Alliance is more proactive. Last Monday, he tabled a motion at a meeting of the county council, urging Iarnrod Eireann to designate one carriage on all its trains . . . just one lousy carriage . . . as mobile-free.

The motion was passed unanimously.

"You could say it was passed by acclaim, " says Gleeson. "Which is a strange thing to happen in political circles. I got the idea on a train journey to Dublin. The person opposite me in the aisle spent 80% of the journey on their mobile. They were business conversations, which made it worse. It was most distressing and disconcerting. The strident noises of the world are too much in a relaxing situation."

"It's not something that comes up as a major thing for our customers, " says Iarnrod Eireann spokesman Barry Kenny. "We're keeping an open mind. Between now and 2008, we'll have total renewal of our stock, and we'll have more capacity. For example, the Dublin-Cork route goes hourly by this December, and in that context we'll consider it."

But, like the theatres, the train company may have to address the matter soon. As Gleeson says, "People are very tired of mobile phones."