Cars were burnt out and shops were looted as gardai struggled to cope with the violence. Trouble first flared at the northern end of O'Connell Street, where protestors had been gathering since 10am in advance of the planned march by Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR).

The crowd, many of whom had covered their faces with Ireland and Celtic scarfs, began chanting paramilitary slogans and throwing objects at the gardai. The first signs of violence came shortly before noon, when scuffles broke out as gardai attempted to confiscate an object from one of the protestors.

What began as an isolated scuffle soon turned into widespread violence. Rocks and building material from the O'Connell Street roadworks were thrown at gardai, several of whom were injured.

Gardai managed to push the demonstration down O'Connell Street towards the GPO, where a major stand-off took place. Using building materials from the ongoing renovation works on the street, protestors constructed barricades and set fire to bins. At least one member of the garda riot squad was injured as iron bars, glass bottles and paving stones rained down on them. Several press photographers were hit by debris, while RTE's Charlie Bird was taken to hospital after being set upon by a group of demonstrators.

A fire brigade attempting to make its way through the demonstration came under heavy attack, with youths attempting to dismantle the hoses on board the vehicle.

Two garda vans also came under sustained attack and were forced to reverse back down O'Connell Street.

The stand-off lasted until 2pm, when the crowd suddenly turned around and ran towards the southside of the city, which had been left unprotected by the gardai. Under the belief that the march had reached Leinster House, the crowd made their way down D'Olier Street and passed Trinity College.

Around 2.15pm, a few hundred youths ran up Nassau Street, chanting "C. .I. . .C. . .I. . .R. . .A", a reference to the Continuity IRA, of which Republican Sinn Fein, which organised the protest, is the political wing. Armed with everything from iron bars to aluminium chairs, the crowd began smashing windows.

There was a limited number of gardai on Kildare Street and as they waited for reinforcements members of the crowd began to attack a Jaguar car which had a northern registration. A BMW, also with a Northern registration, was then set upon, with the crowd smashing all the windows with iron bars before overturning the vehicle and setting fire to it.

As the BMW burnt, a handful of demonstrators began to smash the windows of cars parked on Nassau Street, stealing CDs and other items before setting fire to the vehicles. At least five cars on Nassau Street, three of which had southern registrations, were set alight.

Members of staff from a cafe who attempted to put out the blazes with fire extinguishers were subjected to verbal abuse.

At this stage, Nassau Street resembled a war zone. Shop and restaurant windows were broken and the offices of the Progressive Democrats, located on South Frederick Street, had been attacked. A minibus registered to St Columba's College was smashed up. A black plume of smoke blew across the street. Inside the National Gallery, a porter showed an iron bar he had retrieved from the street. There was blood splattered along the shaft.

At around 2.30pm, teens covering their faces smashed the windows of Schuh and FootLocker on O'Connell Street, as well as the Ulster Bank. Within minutes rioters forced up the security barriers and began looting shops, tossing t-shirts and sports bags into the crowd.

By 3pm gardai began to push a group of a couple of hundred people back towards Temple Bar. At this stage, rioting had also spread northwards to the Jervis Street shopping centre. By 4pm, a total of 38 people had been arrested and in the region of 20 people had been hospitalised, including four gardai.

The taoiseach and leaders of most parties condemned the rioting with justice minister Michael McDowell personally expressing regret to DUP MP, Jeffrey Donaldson, who had travelled to Dublin with the marchers. Republican Sinn Fein president Des Dalton said the march demonstrated "how out of touch the 26-county political establishment was with the depth of opposition" to the march.