AS the evening Angelus bells tolled on Talbot Street, the Army bomb disposal man crossed the street towards the skip where gardai believed the UFF had placed a bomb.
A robot had searched the container throughout the late afternoon, dumping empty boxes and rubbish bags in front of the James Joyce statue and adjacent shops. No one had ventured near the skip since the bomb disposal unit sped down Dublin's O'Connell Street just after 4 p.m.
Reporters and photographers had been pushed back from the corner of North Earl Street to the Talbot Hotel.
Only one business remained open inside the police line. The Italian Connection had supplied coffee to the officers who kept the streets clear throughout the afternoon.
But as 6 p.m. approached, the gardai downed their cups and went outside to watch in awe as the soldier, in an Army green protective suit, climbed inside the skip to place a "disrupter" beside a shoe box the object of suspicion.
"What is he wearing," an observer inquired of one Garda officer. "A miraculous medal," he replied. There is nothing that can protect him if something goes up.
Ten minutes later, a loud bang set alarm bells ringing around the shopping district. The controlled explosion sent little more than a puff of smoke and dust in the air.
Among the tourists and locals who had waited hours for a bomb to go off there was an air of anti climax, almost disappointment.
The city had been held to ransom for more than six hours but at the end of the day there was little to show the children who had waited with their parents behind the Garda tapes on Talbot Street.