Barring somebody from Dublin's Krystle night club because her heels are too high is like kicking Jackie Healy-Rea out of Leinster House for wearing a cap. The Americans call it counter-intuitive. But such was the explanation of a bouncer from said premises when he appeared in Dublin District Court last week to give evidence in a case where a Traveller woman was seeking €5,000 compensation from Krystle for her humiliation at his hands. He was worried about her safety on those high heels, the bouncer said. Refusing the woman entry had nothing to do with her being a Traveller.

The woman herself was sure about what happened. "I am a member of the Travelling community and I am taking this case because I believe I was discriminated against," Sarah Stokes said. "I believe it is the only reason I was refused. I was well-dressed and I cannot think of another reason." The judge agreed with her.

Krystle was ground zero for the kind of preening, yahooing airhead who personified the economic boom. A haunt of C-list celebrities, wannabe models looking for rich boyfriends and rich husbands looking for no-strings flings with members of the ditzetariat, it was not the kind of place you would normally expect to see members of the Travelling community or, for that matter, low-paid civil servants or the unemployed. It wore its exclusivity proudly. To be a regular there was to delude yourself that you were a mover, maybe even a shaker, in a fabulous existence of lip gloss and lovelies that would never end.

By last August, however, when Sarah Stokes and her friends visited from the outside world, the end was nigh. Ireland was deep into recession. The rich husbands were no longer so rich – many of them were unemployed – and were staying home watching Desperate Housewives with their loved ones. The wannabe models still showed up, because they had nowhere else to go, and the music still played, but the mood now was one of defiance rather than celebration. If we were going down, we'd all go down together. Such good times, we had once. Such good times.

Back in the real Ireland, things were tough as well. Sarah Stokes, the mother of a cerebral palsy child, was at Krystle as part of a charity fundraiser. Ireland's health service is such a mess, despite all the recent wealth, that parents of sick children have to fundraise to survive. Krystle, therefore, was a chance to raise a few bob, enjoy a few drinks, and have a good time amongst people who probably thought cerebral palsy was an expensive cocktail.

The alarm bells clearly started ringing among Krystle's patrons when these commoners started to muscle in on their territory. Peter Murphy, resources manager with the Irish Epilepsy Association, which was involved in the fundraiser, gave evidence that club management had told him they had "an issue with the overall appearance of people who would not usually get into Krystle". There were no complaints about drunkenness or rowdy behaviour. The message was clear: "These people are not like us. They do not belong here".

In a taxi in Dublin on Wednesday night, I was listening to the Adrian Kennedy phone show on FM104. The topic was people who use bad language in front of their children. The woman whose email sparked the discussion was outraged when she heard a mother call her son a little bollocks. The f-word was used too. This kind of behaviour, the caller suggested, was typical of the "lower classes".

I was shocked, but not at the use of the f-word. I hadn't heard the phrase "the lower classes" for a long time, probably in a repeat of the 1970s' tv series Upstairs Downstairs. But here it was, alive and well, being used on live radio on the same day that "Ireland's number one night club" was revealed to have operated an apartheid system in relation to the "lower classes" – or at least in relation to people whose "overall appearance" did not meet with its approval.

The end of the boom could never be described as a good thing. It has brought too much devastation to too many innocent people who have no responsibility for the collapse created by bankers, builders and politicians. But it produced a body of people – the sneering classes, let's call them – whose access to money and glitz and pretence gave them an unrealistic sense of their own superiority. A few of them were on display last week, touting their prejudices for all to hear. It would be nice to think we'll be seeing the back of them very soon.

Dumb and dumber: Leo's conspiracy theory

Leo Varadkar is a talented politician, and worth a few shillings of your money to be the next Fine Gael leader, but last week he was responsible for one of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories I've heard in a long time. His suggestion that the release of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on Fás was timed to coincide with the deliberations of the jury in the Eamonn Lillis was pure, unadulterated hoohah. This is because, firstly, as anybody with even limited exposure to juries can tell you, you can never predict how long they'll take to make up their minds and, secondly, because the government just isn't that clever.

ddoyle@tribune.ie