Members of An Garda Síochána have spoken about their experiences being on duty in Dublin city centre during the rioting on 23 November.
Garda Gillian Slane, based in Pearse Street Garda Station, was on duty that day.
"I was up on Parnell Street directing traffic and then I looked behind me and a couple of the people that were there started damaging the garda car," she said. "And then the public order unit went in to try and disperse them, and they just started running towards me and my colleague."
"We had to then go and find basically somewhere safe to stay. So we ended up going into just a little kind of secluded area just to keep out of harm's way until it calmed down," said Ms Slane.
"We basically waited until the crowd cleared off where we were and then me and my colleague then went back to the garda station and went up towards the Dáil."
"I'm not going to lie, it was scary. I'm not going to put up the front just because I'm a guard or anything like that. It was scary. And it's not a nice experience," she added.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Ms Slane said that since then policing the city centre feels the same as it ever was.
"A lot of members of the public are coming up to us and saying that they are proud of us and they are very thankful of the work that we did that night. And so that is nice to get when you are out walking around, to be honest."
Garda Michael Moore, also based in Pearse Street Garda Station, was directed to the O’Connell and Parnell Street areas to assist colleagues when he started work on 23 November.
"The majority of protests that we would deal with in the city, people engage with it, they explain why they're out and why they’re protesting," he said.
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"But we could kind of get a feeling from a couple of people in the crowd that there was a bit of a sinister kind of aspect. There were a couple individuals there that were completely covered, facial features, everything was covered.
"They didn't engage with us at all, which would be very unlike normal protests. So, the feeling started to kind of change."
Mr Moore said he and his colleagues who had public order training were directed to put on their riot gear.
"We went back and got geared up to support our colleagues who were on the ground because the crowd had started to gather. It started to get bigger and bigger and bigger," he said.
"The protest element side had left at that stage. The majority of people there were not there to protest or to show support for other people or for what happened that day, which is what it should have been. It took a very sinister turn."
"It was a very high and emotionally intense situation to be in for hours and hours trying to take the city and trying a bit of peace and a bit of order to everything, which we did," said Mr Moore. "But it was hard work. I hadn't experienced anything like it before and hopefully we won't experience anything like that again."
Mr Moore said it caused anxiety among his family.
"I have a wife and a young baby at home, and she was up the walls. She's watching it on the news and her knowing that I was public order trained.
"And then the likelihood of me being there on the front line, which I was. I was able to get word back to her after a couple of hours."
"It took me a couple of days to calm down. I didn't sleep much when I got home that night," he said.
