I'd be interested to know if the German ambassador has any thoughts on the subject. But it seems to me that, along with the coarseness and the new cars, Ireland's boom has also caused a major upsurge in hugging.
Not the passionate hugging associated with lovers and professional soccer players. I mean social hugging, of the lovely-to-see-you-kiss-kiss kind.
The phenomenon is a minor but constant source of stress in my life these days. Having grown up in a community where hugging was frowned on, outside marriage, I find myself increasingly called upon to embrace people who, at best, are only casual acquaintances. And it wouldn't be so bad if I knew what the rules were.
Is a hug on its own acceptable, for example, or do you always have to do the kissing thing as well? Should it always be a pretend-kiss, with no lip involvement and only fake sounds? Or are there social situations where an exchange of saliva is expected? Then there is the question of how many kisses. One is more than enough, as far as I'm concerned. But many people insist on two, and if you pull out early it ruins the effect. It's like a pair of cricketers getting their calls mixed up. If one partner stands his ground while the other comes back for a second run, one of them always ends up stumped and feeling silly.
On top of this, there seems to be some inflation creeping in. Four or five years ago, the double-kiss was extravagant, even in Dublin. Now, maybe because of the influence of Eastern Europeans, it's not unusual to see three-kiss combinations: right, left, and right again, like the Green Cross Code.
But at least that is a code. It's the not knowing that bothers me. Of course you can always cheat by waiting a split second for the other party to make the first move, and then reciprocating enthusiastically. The danger here is that, in your anxiety to atone for the initial reluctance, you may be over-vigorous, increasing the chances of a head-butt or other accident.
Besides, the other person may hold back too. Then both of you end up embarrassed. If you had a whole roomful of people holding back, they would be like the repressed Lutheran band in Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, whose beat was always slightly off because everybody waited for everybody else to hit it first.
Alternatively, you can take the lead in social situations and dictate terms. But this has risks too. There's nothing worse than when you greet a female acquaintance with a handshake, and then all your other male friends hug her. Suddenly you feel like the guy who gave €5 to the office collection when everybody else gave a tenner. You're an emotional cheapskate.
Females are central to the whole social hugging thing in Ireland. Except for the theatrical profession and other special-needs groups, there is very little male-male hugging. In mixed company, it is always male-female or female-female. Do women need all these hugs? I suspect there are many females out there who are mystified as to why they have to embrace each other in public, but go along with it anyway because it's expected.
Logical as it might be, however, I'm not calling for an extension of the practice to men. This would lead to even more embarrassing situations, like the one I experienced at a funeral once, when the priest went further than usual in suggesting that the congregation offer each other a sign of peace.
It was in a country church, in an area where even the concept of shaking hands with the stranger beside you had probably taken a while to catch on. But I think this priest had returned recently from overseas, maybe from a country that was more tactile than Ireland. So instead of the usual formula, he asked us all to turn to our nearest neighbour and "hold that person in your arms".
I don't know what the reaction was inside the packed church, where at least people were standing shoulder to shoulder and didn't have far to reach. But I had arrived late and was among the over-spill outside, listening on a loudspeaker. Where we were, the priest's suggestion was greeted with silent horror.
The crowd outside was predominantly male. So if the priest had called on us to convert there and then to Protestantism, the situation would have been less tense than the one that followed his hugging proposal. For what was probably only a second-and-a-half, but seemed a lot longer, no one moved.
Then somebody realised the obvious: the priest couldn't see us. Consequently, we could just pretend his suggestion had never happened, and he wouldn't know any better. So it was that the tension was broken. Somebody just shook hands with his neighbour, same as usual, and with a collective sigh of relief, we all did likewise.
Footnote: In a column about pianist John O'Conor on Tuesday, I wrote that his father had worked for 55 years in a sawmill. This was only slightly correct. Mr O'Conor snr worked for 55 years all right, but it was in the timber and builders' providers store, T & C Martin's.