EVERY now and then another revival kicks off, instigated by a certain age demographic - generally late 20s/early 30s - with their insatiable appetite for anything retro and/or ironic. Blink and you'll miss them however.

Poker nights were hot for a while, then they weren't and now they seem to be gathering momentum again. The Prawn Cocktail Years by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsay Bareham, which revisits classic fare from the last few decades, is a bestseller (although it would actually take a very confident host to serve up prawn cocktail and duck a l'orange making some reference to the irony factor). Tupperware parties were doing the rounds last year, generally held by career women more accustomed to hitting the microwave's button than ladling homemade casseroles into plastic containers for freezing. You might recall a craze for boules two summers ago.

Sometimes these fads' fleeting nature is less to do with people tiring of the trend than it is to do with the fact that they never really existed in the first place. Take "staying in is the new going out". It was meant to be the new battle cry of young property owners, skint after buying their first house and now shunning clubs and pubs in favour of home entertainment. But it didn't really take off, as our roaring bar trade attests. Actually, it was a joke that the Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson once made at a meeting, which snowballed from witty to state of fact in a nanosecond because it was catchy.

Next up to be reclaimed by Generation Y is, apparently, bingo. We know that Oprah, Catherine Zeta Jones and Robbie Williams (although possibly not at the moment) are huge fans. Top Shop, always miles ahead of the trend, are selling bingo sets in store. The Shirley Temple Bar bingo nights in the George are legendary. But if you want to experience the real deal, you'll have to head to the converted cinemas, community halls and leisure centres. Bingo hasn't gone away but it has resisted the gentrification that other forms of gambling seem to have undergone. Check out the wonderfully luxuriant flagship William Hunt premises for a case in point. It's quite unlike any other bookies shop we've ever been in.

But bingo halls are a dying breed, even if the age profile of attendees is rising, according to bingo nights organisers. The smoking ban had a huge effect on it. Why so many bingo players also smoke isn't quite clear, but they do. Scotland as also experienced a similar impact since introducing a ban on smoking indoors last March. There, gambling group Rank has closed down 15 of its halls in an 11-month period after a reported 25% drop in profits caused by the ban.

Dublin's longest running bingo event can be found at the National Stadium on South Circular Road. It's been going since 1932, started by boxing legend and retired garda Lugs Brannigan. In its heyday, it would have had 2,000 attendees. Now it's on every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday and welcomes, on average, 700 people a night.

Many are regulars, some travel from as far as Kill in Co Kildare and it's predominantly attended by older women although there are smatterings of men and young girls. If the bingo revival is happening, it's still only in its infancy.

Ann Smith, who has been calling the numbers here for 23 years, says it has one of the best payouts in bingo. "We get a lot of younger people now but we have people coming all the years that we have been here, " she says. "A lot of women come here whose family would be reared and this is their social life. There's a good atmosphere and everybody kind of knows everyone else." She jokes that if she could put a counsellor on the door, she'd make a fortune. "You just get to be so fond of all the people."

Ann starts calling the numbers at 8.15pm but people start arriving from 7.20pm. They get their seats, buy their books and their dabs, and examine the prizes stacked in the middle of the floor. There are George Foreman grills, barbecue sets and steam cleaners. They stock up on tea, coffee and sweets from the little concession at the back which is run by Carla, who has been here longer than Ann, some 30 years. She started accompanying her father here as a 10-year-old, when he then ran the shop.

If you're looking for the traditional set up of bouncing balls, you'll be disappointed - bingo here became computerised two years ago. People missed the balls in the beginning but are now used to the computer and watching the numbers on the screen. "But if we ever have to take them [the balls] out for a reason, the roof would lift."

But much of the game hasn't changed.

There are still the bingo books, the little coloured dabs to mark the numbers and most importantly the lulling patter of a seasoned bingo caller. "Top of the house - 90. Clickety-click - 66. The lady's age - 29."

It's all very rhythmic and almost mesmerising until some shout "Check" and there's a flurry of excitement. "Come on Ann, " someone heckles as Ann re-checks the line. But it's only in jest. "Leave her alone, don't be doing that to her, " shouts back someone else.

Deirdre Guinan, 22, from Blanchardstown is here for the first time. Why bingo this evening? "I had nothing else to do. I never played bingo before but I'd say it should be fun." Fiona Byrne, from Ballybrack, Co Dublin, is another of the younger female attendees is here with her cousins, and sisters Helen Malone and Carmel Radford. Fiona has been coming here for years.

"My ma's been dragging me since I was a baby, " she explains. She's also won the big Euro1,500 prize four times. What did she spend it on? "Clothes!" Although she says she's not a bit lucky, Ann McKeon has been coming here for years with her friend, June Deegan.

"It never loses its thrill, " she says. "You meet lots of new people. John Redmond, 27, drives his grandmother and her two sisters here every Tuesday. He plays but admittedly would rather be down the pub. "You won't make any money in the pub, " a wag behind him shouts.

There's a certain skill to calling numbers, Ann Smith believes. "People need to be able to hear you clearly. It's an awful lot to do with timing." When she started she used to shake and the crowd would roar at her. "But now I talk back to them. Funny things happen some nights; nothing might happen another night."

The evening ends around the 10 o'clock mark. Some go home richer, others poorer but most happier. For Euro20, it's not the most expensive evening's entertainment that you could have. But sitting in the National Stadium, it's more about family, friends and fun than it is about fashion. Whether or not bingo becomes trendy, Ann doesn't think it will ever disappear. "I don't think bingo will ever go away, there will always be little communities who'll do it."

As for herself, she says she never dreamt in a million years that she'd spend 23 years calling numbers but now, "I'm staying for the final curtain."

A LOAD OF BALLS: BRING BINGO BACK

Bingo started in Italy as a state-run lottery called 'Lo Giuco de Lotto'
Spread like wildfire through Europe in the 1700s and 1800s
Got the actual name 'bingo' in 1929 when a player shouted the word when he won a game in atlanta, Georgie
One of the most popular games in the world by the 1940s
It is estimated that 47% of players are under the age of 45
Holidays are the most common items bought with bingo prize money
Bingo can improve brain power. A study showed bingo players perform better on certain mental tasks than non players
The luckiest name if you're a female is Margaret. If you're a male, it's Joe