In recent times, a new form of protest has emerged around Ireland.
Staff at some pharmacies and libraries have had to deal with groups or individuals entering their workplaces and making unfounded accusations relating to vaccines or child protection.
In places where asylum seekers are accommodated, staff have been personally accused of wrongdoing by activists filming the interaction which is then put online, as Oonagh Smyth reports.
"They had taken over the whole shop. It happened very quickly. We weren't expecting it," said Robert Murphy, a locum pharmacist in Dalton's Pharmacy in the heart of Cork City.
Anti-vaccine protesters entered the premises. They were recording video on their phones as they began to address staff, as customers tried to get prescriptions filled.
"Initially, I was under the assumption they were customers and went to serve them," said Mr Murphy.
"That's when they issued me with two notification documents regarding the Covid-19 vaccine."
The protesters ignored pleas to stop filming or leave. Over the course of ten minutes, they told Mr Murphy and other staff that they would be considered 'personally liable' for administering vaccines.
The footage was later posted online.
Dalton's was just one of several pharmacies in Cork to be targeted in such a way over February and March.
"It is a new form of protest to me," says Pat Dalton, the owner of the pharmacy. "It's not an acceptable form of protest, and I hope it doesn't catch on."
But it has caught on already.
In Cork City Central Library, there have been at least five visits from people using similar tactics, the latest just a few weeks ago. Instead of opposing the provision of vaccines, they have been seeking to have certain books removed.
Footage posted online shows library staff being filmed without consent, as some protesters accuse them of being "ignorant of grooming" and "not caring about children".
A small group called the Irish Education Alliance has led a campaign since January, encouraging members of the public to go to address librarians in their local libraries.
It encourages people to enter libraries and examine "LGBTQ+ books" in the Young Adult section, then to issue a 'notice of liability' to the head librarian and file a report with An Garda Síochána.
The campaign uses the slogan '#protectchildhood', and describes certain books as pornography.
Some of the same people who have entered pharmacies in Cork to oppose vaccines support the Irish Education Alliance campaign and attend its protests.
The Irish Education Alliance emerged during the pandemic, initially campaigning against mask-wearing in schools and the vaccination of children.
They ask supporters to be respectful to librarians and staff, but not all their supporters have heeded that request.
At some protests, people who give access to the opposed books are described as "groomers" and "paedophiles".
The tactics used in protests in libraries came to the attention of city councillors, who passed a motion in March expressing support for staff who they said were experiencing "focused personal abuse" and "intimidation in the course of their work".
Some councillors who supported the motion said they were reluctant to speak to the media about the protests, due to concern they may be subjected to similar campaigns as a result.
However, Green Party councillor Colette Finn told Prime Time that "workers should not have to be intimidated at work. I just think that's a bottom line that we shouldn't cross".
"It's not the way to complain about a book. If you have a complaint about a book, you can go to the censorship of publications."
However the protests have continued.
People working with the LGBTQ+ community in Cork are concerned about the impact of the protests.
"There's a cohort of people that are coming to terms with their sexual orientation or their gender identity at all ages," says Aaron O'Sullivan, a support worker at The Sexual Health Centre in the city.
"I think it's hugely important that people are able to find those resources and those supports and to know that they're fundamentally safe in finding that."
But members of the Irish Education Alliance defend the aims of the campaign.
A representative of the campaign told Prime Time that the group "does not condone any violence and our assemblies are always communicated as 'peaceful'."
"That some of these books are LGBTQ+ is not what is relevant. The fact that they contain inappropriate sexually explicit content and are categorised for 12+ year-old children is what is relevant."
It's not just library staff who have been subjected to protests in relation to books.
Children's Books Ireland is a charity that aims to support literacy and reading in Ireland. It produces a recommended reading list annually for LGBTQ+ young people, which it calls the Pride Reading Guide.
Some of the books opposed by Irish Education Alliance have been included.
As a result, protesters turned up at the Children's Books Ireland office, demanding by name to see the CEO, Elaina Ryan. The office is in an otherwise residential and privately owned building.
Ms Ryan said the protesters refused to leave when asked by residents and were "extremely disrespectful".
"We've never had this in Ireland," she told Prime Time, describing how a campaigner stood on the steps of the charity's office building and called out her name on a megaphone.
"We have never had a personalised protest like this, or indeed a protest like this at all. There is a whole global movement, and we can see this new Irish movement mirroring those tactics."
Analysts and academics who closely watch these groups agree.
Aoife Gallagher works for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, researching emerging online campaigns and narratives. She says the tactics and language used in 'direct action' protests originally emerged from the United States.
"They're part of this larger international ecosystem. What we're seeing is more encouragement to take that extreme action," Ms Gallagher told Prime Time.
"That's not something that we have seen before. It is something that is quite different and quite a worrying development."
She says protesters are gaining an increasing influence through social media.
"Content that generates engagement tends to be content that is divisive, that provokes outrage, that provokes fear. And they're very good at kind of creating content that can game those algorithms."
As a result, she says, such narratives are disproportionately amplified online, leading to them becoming prominent in communities across the world.
In Ireland, direct action tactics have become increasingly popular among groups which campaign on issues like immigration also.
In communities where most carry out local peaceful protests, others are now taking their own kind of direct action to oppose the housing of asylum seekers.
While this form of protest against asylum seekers has grown since mid-2022 - following the influx of Ukrainian refugees - the number of incidents has increased across the country in the past few months.
In Dublin's Santry, vehicles carrying asylum seekers have been turned away by organised groups attaching themselves to local protests.
In Inch, Co Clare, well-known agitators from Dublin showed up and attached themselves to local peaceful protests. And in the most serious incident to date, in Dublin city centre, tents and shelter used by asylum seekers were damaged.
Dr Barry Cannon of Maynooth University says that policy changes and resources are needed to prevent such tactics becoming more widespread.
"I think that if this level of agitation and this level of intimidation of people continues, I think that we are - and we will have to see - a lot more invoking of garda powers against these protesters."
"We've also got to talk to communities as well about this. There's got to be much more consultation. People have got to be promised that resources will go in there so that the services which are already stretched there are not going to be stretched even further."
A Prime Time special programme on this subject broadcasts Tuesday, 6 June at 9.35pm on RTÉ One.
