Esther McCarthy: Are manners outdated? Is it ever okay to play loud music in public? 

Where’s our auditory social etiquette gone? Where’s the line? Is it OK to take a phone call in a crowd? Listen to a voice note on speaker? Let your excited dog bark?

"Perhaps a subtle social cue will suffice. I make like Granpa Simpson and give them the glowering of a lifetime. But damn my fabulously oversized sunglasses! They render my stink eye powerless!"

Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre must have been after a day at the beach, or a stressful aircoach ride, when he came up with his observation that ‘Hell is — other people’.

A gang of us land on to a beach in west Cork last weekend; we are on an extended family weekend away, from toddlers to teens to retirees.