IT'S after hours on a Saturday night on Dublin's Wexford Street. People are spilling out of pubs, waving down taxis. A man staggers up the street shouting, but his voice is lost in the crowd.

From afar, he looks like another harmless drunk. Up close, however, he is foaming at the mouth, saliva dripping down his chin. He is grunting and calls a random passer-by a "Polish paedophile".

He is mad with rage. He is like a wild animal broken loose from a cage. A woman tries to avoid him, but he tries to grab her male friend, who breaks free and runs.

He chases them a few steps, roars some more, gives up and continues on his way, screaming in the face of another unsuspecting group.

This flashpoint is one endresult of a gradual, dramatic change of mood on our streets.

Like the game of statues you played as a child: you turn around and, though nothing seems different at first, there is a vaguely threatening presence inching closer. It may start with a twisted windscreen wiper, a heavy sigh of impatience from a person at the ATM, an elderly woman on the Dart refusing to budge to allow people off - "Why should I move?"

she asks, a question that appears to have more to do with her own hard-knock life than commuter rush hour - or teenage girls kicking down a pink sandwich board from a beauty parlour, goading the owner to give chase. Dublin is one angry town.

A stressed-out white-collar worker - a paragon of corporate domicility by day? - puts on a rugby shirt at night and, after a pint glass doesn't do the job, rams the window of Black Tie on Baggot Street until it shatters. Meanwhile, supermarket cashiers bitch and moan loudly about management, wages and hangovers, snatching cards with their long, put-upon faces. In New York, strangers address each other as "sir" or "madam", thus respectful behaviour is partly built into their language. In Dublin, on the other hand, if a stranger addresses you at all, it's either a beggar looking for money, a mugger demanding your money or a tourist looking for directions to spend their money.

When the frightened young woman on Wexford Street that night finally hailed a taxi, tears were streaming down her face.

(The taxi driver told her, "This is a dangerous city." And he was from Lagos, a place with one of the highest crime rates in the world. ) Not long before that night, two boys from a private school in Rathgar spat on her windscreen for no reason. "I saw them run down a lane, so I parked the car on Highfield Road and. . ." she laughs at herself at this bit, "I hid behind a bush in a garden." Then she pounced. "I asked for their names and they gave false ones, so I called their school. The school secretary said, 'That's terrible.' And that was that. I should have asked for a line-up."

It gets worse. A few months earlier, two guys in their early 20s pretended to rear-end her car as she drove out of the Dundrum Town Centre car park. She got out of the car and asked them to stop. "F*** off, you stupid bitch!"

they shouted. She tried the same approach and said she would call the police. That was her first mistake. They followed her all the way to Sandyford. "I called my brother on his mobile and asked him what to do." She stopped the car. They blocked her in, rolled down their window and shouted, "You ugly bitch, you ugly c***, get your face fixed!" A man passing by doubled-back and asked if everything was all right, so her tormentors drove off.

These three stories of random aggression of varying degrees are not gleaned from a support group. This is one person's story of life in our capital. She doesn't enjoy mall-shopping either. She is put off by the hoards of teenage girls, the revenge of the killer Bebos. "They are so aggressive and heavily made up that you can't even see who they are, " she says. "They hold hands and form a wall." They are well-dressed with ironed hair, Ugg boots and jeans - middleclass kids whose parents have given them everything except, maybe, their time.

Junior liaison officers, assigned to the problem child among them, are commonly referred to as 'J-LOs', a monicker borrowed from Jennifer Lopez.

The American psychologist James Garbarino, author of a new book See Jane Hit, believes girls are freed from the obligation to be ladylike in an increasingly egalitarian society, which can boost self-confidence. But, at the other end of the spectrum, they are more vulnerable to a heady cocktail of hypersexuality, materialism and violence. In this toxic environment and culture, aggression is seen as positive. Crowds battle over products in TV advertisements, teen idol Paris Hilton gets done for driving under the influence and is caught giggling to the "n" word on YouTube, her arch enemy Lindsay Lohan checks in and out of rehab and even Hermione in one Harry Potter movie punches another character.

These messages and role models have slowly worked their way from the computer and TV onto the street. Mona O'Moore, head of the Anti-Bullying Centre in Trinity College, agrees that girls - in particular - are becoming more aggressive and says her recent survey of student bullying supports that. "Children have to release their frustration because there's more tension and competition in their lives, " she says.

"People are more materialistic, everyone seems to need to be successful and/or a celebrity. And, bear in mind, there's not always a loving, tolerant parent in the background providing nourishment." And, so, over-indulgent or 5absent parents give life to children without limits.

The physical support too is lacking: sprawling housing developments are built without adequate facilities, hence more kids becoming mallrats. (They may at least share this consumerism with their parents. ) As young people need to belong, they naturally form packs which can in turn erode personal responsibility. "We have a pretty cut-throat society, " O'Moore says. "Even the school system judges everybody;

children with different aptitudes are not tapped because it's so academic. Where is the infrastructure, the swimming pools and football pitches, ice-skating rinks, sports domes for tennis and squash? In some housing estates, children aren't even allowed to play on the grass."

It's no surprise that the government - its close relationship with developers being part of the problem - introduced antisocial behaviour orders for adults on 1 January and, this month, for children aged 12 to 18. Garda� give three warnings before enforcing an asbo, which lasts a maximum of two years. They cover harassment, significant or persistent alarm, distress, fear or intimidation and/or impairment of the use or enjoyment of somebody's property. For adults, the penalty for breach of an order is a fine up to Euro3,000 or a maximum of six months' imprisonment. For children, a fine of up to Euro800 or a stay in a children's detention school for a period not exceeding three months or both.

Still, feeble court rulings point to the lack of deterrents. O'Moore knows of a case where a man in his early 20s jumped on another guy on the street. "The perpetrator was desperate that the victim of this attack not pursue a case. If he had a record, he said he wouldn't get an American visa." (Something he might remember the next time he considers jumping someone. ) Which brings us to Anna Nolan, who was assaulted in Long Lane, Dublin 8. A 23-yearold man pulled the TV presenter to the ground by her hair and said he was going to kill her. He had drunk half a bottle of vodka and beer and claimed no memory of the attack. He was given a threeyear suspended sentence.

Binge drinking is a national pastime but, while alcohol and drugs fuel aggression, a person's mental state, stress, background and character play a part too. Is it enough to practically use an empty vodka bottle as Exhibit A for the defence as a tacit excuse for one's actions? Dublin Circuit Criminal Court judge Frank O'Donnell praised the good samaritans who caught the man and helped Anna Nolan. But the judge also said he had to accept evidence that her attacker had no previous convictions and "apparently had a complete blank". That is a bleak message for our society:

drag someone to the ground by the hair and threaten to kill them, then plead vodka and amnesia afterwards.

The judge's message is all the more portentous in light of alcohol abuse. (Two words: Temple.

Bar. ) Dr Declan Bedford, a public health specialist at the North Eastern Health Board, says one in three A&E trips are alcohol related. We are cash-rich with one of the youngest populations in Europe who have access to more cheap alcohol than ever in shops.

This is not a healthy combination, Bedford says: "Alcohol makes people more aggressive and people who are intoxicated are more likely to be a victim of violence.

Studies show that violence increases with per-capita alcohol consumption. We have money, drink and sex and, yet, we've also got nothing. Our sense of community has been eroded."

New Yorker Margaret E Ward, director of a writing and communications training service, Clear Ink, agrees. "I've lived here for 12 years and Dublin is far more rude and aggressive than Manhattan, " she says. "At least if you're walking down the street in your neighbourhood in Manhattan and you say hello to people, they say hello back. I've said hello to people here and they ignored me. It doesn't help promote a sense of community where you live. What about civic pride? Why not acknowledge another human being's existence? Does it force your fellow citizens to be invisible because you want to be anonymous? It is up to all of us to determine what kind of city we want to live in."

Pity Bord F�ilte. "People here don't say please and thank you, " Ward adds, "and they are so dour." She has experienced a weirder urban phenomenon:

pushy women of a certain age who persistently jump queues and think every day of the year is the first day of the Boyer's January sale. "Is there a social more I'm not aware of that allows you to cut queues if you're over 60?

These women will step in front of you and pretend they didn't see you, or look you up and down and scowl if you say something. Is it because they're frustrated with their lives and angry, and feel like they've earned that right?"

And then there is the crazy salivating man on Wexford Street, who could have been bitten by a mad dog or infected by the murderous rage from the nihilistic movie 28 Days Later. What became of him after that night?

What did he think when he awoke the next morning? Was his violent tirade another blank? Did he have confusing flashbacks? Was he boozing all day, as he does every day before it? Is he that lone, shadowy figure propped at the counter of a backstreet bar? Or is he now searching for his next hit?

Or, perhaps, he too is reading these stories about our capital city, shaking his head with dismay as he genuinely wonders, "What the hell is going on?"