On Friday, seven of them were due at a sitting of Cloverhill, a remand court used to facilitate the transport of prisoners in custody from the adjoining prison. In each case, the remand was continued.

One guard pointed out that there may be more charges to follow. In the case of a man claiming to be Lithuanian, an officer told the court that his real identity had yet to be established. In all instances, the full rigours of the law are expected to be applied. Politicians and civic leaders have called for no less.

Their alleged crimes are likely to be seen in the overall context of a breakdown of law and order on Dublin's main thoroughfare, and beyond, on a Saturday afternoon busy with shoppers and tourists.

Bigotry So much for being tough on crime, but what of the causes of crime? The fires on Nassau Street were still smouldering as various parties lined up to provide an answer or, perhaps, to loot what they could from the debris.

Initially, the DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson reserved the bulk of his comments for the courteous and professional manner in which the gardai had dealt with the marchers. He and Willie Frazer, the leader of the Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (Fair) group, held fire.

By Monday, Donaldson was lashing out on Dublin's Newstalk 106. He denied that one of the bands had started up The Sash while waiting to march at the north end of Parnell Square. He denied there was an Orange standard on display. A reputable journalist heard and saw both.

Donaldson reacted angrily to a suggestion that perhaps the march wasn't such a hot idea. As far as he was concerned, the riots reinforced what unionists of his strand had long suspected about the South. Bigots are around every corner, waiting to slay Northern prods.

It's difficult not to believe that the scheduled march was primarily a propaganda exercise. If so, Donaldson, Frazer and their merry band could hardly have wished for a better outcome. On the long climb to victimhood, their tradition has once again secured the high ground.

Political looting Down south, there was still plenty of looting to be done.

Politicians of all hue ransacked Sinn Fein. The Shinners in turn could have come out flailing against their former comrades in Republican Sinn Fein (RSF), whose protest was the spark for what ensued. But in one of the few sensible moves last week, they didn't bother.

Republican Sinn Fein is an irrelevance, particularly in Dublin. With all the publicity its planned protest received, it could muster only around 50 stragglers for its biggest shindig in years.

On RTE on Sunday night Pat Rabbitte and Michael McDowell were at one as to the real perpetrators, Rabbitte with a keen eye on his left flank, McDowell grasping compulsively for the Blueshirt law-and-order vote.

The term "republican" was loosely thrown out and allowed to sink into the national consciousness.

There could be only one conclusion to draw . . . Gerry Adams and his cohort were at fault.

There is little doubt that Adams and his people have much to answer for in terms of the last 35 years, but in this case their hands are unstained.

Elsewhere, the Garda Representative Association pulled something from the wreckage. Rank-and-file members were in the frontline on Saturday, and sustained both physical and psychological injuries. Their conduct was rightly commended by all sides.

But the plaintive cry for more resources from the GRA was opportunistic. The force certainly has a resource issue, but that was not a factor in what unfolded on the streets of Dublin last Saturday. Garda management did not have a case to answer.

By Tuesday, the dust had settled, but the rhetoric kept on motoring. The preliminary garda report cut through some of the hype and hysteria. A total of 281 officers had been deployed to police the event. A detachment of 67 members from the public order unit . . . the riot squad . . .

was kept discreetly in reserve. In terms of what was reasonably expected, the level of deployment was difficult to dispute.

The report referred to 200 -300 people who suddenly massed at the flashpoint where gardai were engaging with the RSF people. Many emerged from public houses. These people began attacking officers with missiles, including snooker balls, fireworks and smoke bombs.

Two petrol bombs were thrown. The gardai believe a large segment of blame can be attached to an element within the mob, known for football hooliganism.

The report made no mention of organisation, nothing on the alleged middle-aged street terror godfathers who were allegedly seen whispering into walkie talkies, nothing on buses arriving from the North, none of the raimeis that had been passed as fact in print and on the airwaves since Saturday.

McDowell's cynicism Still, the wind was under the political classes. In the Dail debate that evening, the minister for justice plumbed depths of cynicism that must have sent a bitter shiver through many gardai. Despite the report shifting blame from any republican elements, McDowell attached the name of a dead officer to the political stick he wielded.

"Those who pervertedly and falsely describe themselves as republicans have once again acted contrary to the aspiration of Irish unity, " he told the Dail.

"They unleashed hate-filled and provocative sectarian abuse on the garda. They insulted members of the force such as the late detective Garda Jerry McCabe, who died at the hands of cowardly and sectarian terrorists as he was helping to uphold our democracy."

Fine Gael's Jim O'Keeffe took up his customary position, clinging for dear life to the minister's coat-tails.

"Our failure allowed a bunch of neo-nationalist fascist thugs from the so-called republican movement to organise a riot with the assistance of gurriers and bums gathered from the streets and pubs of Dublin."

And so it went across the house. The only politician to attempt to cut through the rhetoric to locate reason was Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party.

"The protesters seem to have been a mixture of Republican Sinn Fein supporters, a small group of selfstyled anarchists and a fairly significant group of the disaffected in Irish society. I do not for a second defend the violence that occurred, but I believe the minister must answer questions on why these young people were so disaffected that they turned away from society."

Cuffe went on: "The social exclusion and poverty that led to the Gregory deal some 20 years ago have not gone away. The violence and riots that took place in Paris last summer resonate with what we saw on the streets of Dublin last Saturday."

This was the kind of stuff few in Leinster House wanted to hear. It touched on a nerve, hidden deep beneath the soft tissue of the Celtic Tiger. Yet it was crying out to be said all week.

The sectarianism on display from elements of the mob was of the armchair variety. Most have never met a Northern Protestant but are accustomed second-hand to the bigotry that is prevalent in Glasgow football circles. As an outlet for rage, the concept of an Orangeman does nicely.

Perfect target "Charlie Bird, you're nothing but an Orange bastard, " one of the rioters screamed at the reporter before he and others viciously set upon Bird at the height of last Saturday's mayhem.

The assertion was ludicrous, directed at a man whom the IRA army council contact with their most important public utterances.

But Bird is one of the betterknown faces in civic society, and everybody out there, in that alien and hostile place, is, to these minds, an Orange bastard.

At the faultline between this underclass and society is the gardai, and here the rioters found a perfect target.

The most vicious outbursts were reserved not for the marchers, but for the cops.

Some of this, if reports are to be believed, is the result of bitter experience. Some of it, inevitably, is just a reaction to the gardai's role as the ultimate authority figures.

The explosion of violent rage that occurred was freakish. Talk that the Easter 1916 commemorations could be interrupted is hysterical (a mob is going to attack the Irish army? ), but may serve other political agendas.

However, the real lessons to be learnt from last Saturday will be ignored. There is an underclass . . . alienated, under-educated and in some cases damaged, as the rest of society has managed to better itself in recent years.

Dealing with that would be expensive and messy. Results are not easily tabulated.

There is no real political dividend. Pound for pound, the resources required do not provide the taxpayer with value for money, and that is a political imperative.

Instead, this class is written off as a necessary evil, a side issue compared to all the positives delivered by our thrusting economic model.

The rage will subside for now, but will inevitably raise its head again in other forms. In the meantime, we'll be tough on crime. As for the causes of crime, those are somebody else's problem.

Gardai get help from pics by 'citizen journalists'

GARDAI investigating the Dublin riots are looking beyond CCTV footage and media photos and video to thousands of additional images taken by amateurs, which have since been posted on the internet.

Many people have already supplied their pictures to gardai, despite doubts over whether they could be used as evidence in court.

"I was right up in the middle of it. The faces are crystal clear, " said one financial services worker whose photos on the website Flickr. com were reproduced by national media. "I burned two CDs with hundreds of pictures and brought them to Store Street garda station on Saturday, even before posting any of them online."

The man submitted two sworn statements to gardai. "I had to explain to them about Flickr, " he said. "They hadn't heard of it. The detective I spoke to didn't even have access to the internet at his desk."

Another 'citizen journalist', a Trinity College student, posted four images on his website of the serious assault of three shop assistants of Chinese and Mongolian origin, who were dragged by rioters from the Centra shop at Westland Row. The images, taken from a vantage point above the street, quickly attracted attention on other websites, after which the Trinity student removed them for fear of reprisals. The pictures, which show a brutal assault, were reposted with permission by journalist and blogger Dick O'Brien. He said gardai had been alerted to the photos by the original photographer.

Flickr and other photosharing websites became central repositories of tens of thousands of images taken by amateurs following last July's London tube bombings. Many were reproduced by broadcast and print media outlets.

At its annual meeting in Liverpool later this month, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) will consider launching a "high-profile campaign to discourage 'citizen journalism'". The proposal claims the practice is "undermining the work of bona fide journalists" and that media outlets that encourage amateurs to send in their photos and video are "compromising the safety of members of the public".

Ronan Brady of the NUJ said individual members who wished to cooperate with gardai were "perfectly free to do so in this case, especially if they were hurt, but not as a rule".

Experience in photographs of disturbances in Northern Ireland had led to non-cooperation with police for fear of cameramen being targeted.

Several amateur photographers were assaulted or threatened for taking pictures during the riot. Most said the threats made them more determined to cooperate with gardai.

While the images may prove invaluable to gardai for investigations and intelligence, they may prove problematic for use in court.

"We had experience on the other side of this after 2002, " said Indymedia Ireland editor Ciaran Moore, referring to video and images taken when gardai were accused of using excessive force during a 'Reclaim the Streets' protest on Dame Street. "It's difficult to prove the chain of evidence."

The 'citizen journalist' who reported to Store Street said that gardai had confirmed to him that digital photographs might be difficult to use in court.

Republican Sinn Fein leader warns of 'twice as much' opposition to British queen's visit to Dublin

A PROPOSED visit by Queen Elizabeth II to Dublin will be met with twice as much opposition as last weekend's controversial 'Love Ulster' rally, Republican Sinn Fein leader Ruairi O Bradaigh has warned.

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune a week after the worst violence to be witnessed on Dublin's streets in 25 years, O Bradaigh set out his stall against any proposed visit by the British monarch.

"We will be opposed to a visit from Queen Elizabeth II because of all her royal titles and the way she claims that she is queen of Northern Ireland, " said O Bradaigh.

"We said that last week's 'Love Ulster' march was illadvised and the visit of the queen would be doubly so."

President Mary McAleese has paid several visits to Buckingham Palace during her two terms as president and there is said to be a friendly rapport between the two heads of state.

McAleese has also indicated that she would like to see a royal visit to Dublin, the first since the foundation of the State.

While no date has been officially announced for a visit of the British queen, speculation has been rife that a visit is imminent over the next two years.

Any attempt to re-run the 'Love Ulster' parade, however unlikely that seems now, will also be opposed.

"We will be mounting another protest if they try to march in Dublin again, " said Ruairi O Bradaigh. "It was political blindness on the State's part that they couldn't see that the ordinary working class people in Dublin are disgusted that a march like this could take place down O'Connell Street."

Meanwhile, defence minister Willie O'Dea has pledged that he will quash any disruption at the forthcoming Easter 1916 commemorations.

"As defence minister, I have responsibility for organising the commemoration ceremonies. I condemn what happened in Dublin last week. It was appalling and unacceptable, " said O'Dea. "I will be ensuring there are adequate measures in place for the 1916 commemoration ceremonies.

We will just make sure that everything goes alright in Dublin."

O Bradaigh does not anticipate any disturbances at the Easter commemorations.

"We have been holding commemorations every year since 1916 and Easter is always a big event in Republican circles, " he said.

"I think it is opportunistic for the government to commemorate it now when they didn't do it through the 1970s and 1980s."

Organisers of the annual St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin are on high alert after the riots last week. A spokeswoman for the St Patrick's Day Festival committee said:

"We are currently reviewing whether we need to to have an increased garda presence on the streets of Dublin on St Patrick's Day with the gardai. We certainly hope all those planning to come to see the parade on 17 March can do so in the safe knowledge that they will enjoy a great family day out, as in previous years."

A senior garda source told the Sunday Tribune the force intends to have extra gardai on hand for future events such as the St Patrick's Day festival in case more violence breaks out on the streets.

A spokesman for the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) said:

"We would have concerns that there will be adequate personnel to deal with difficulties that might arise at the St Patrick's Day parade, the 1916 commemorations or a possible visit from the queen.

We would also be concerned that a high level of planning would go into them and that detailed risk assessments would be conducted.

Plans should be drawn up to deal with every risk possible and we are also concerned that the lessons of last Saturday would be learned by garda management."