EMISSIONS/Kilian Doyle: There was no "Battle of Baggot Street" headlines the next day, no photos of dashing garda ploughing, bug-eyed with adrenalin, into groups of cowering students, no earnest crusties badgering Pat Kenny on Friday night with tales of fascist enforcers terrorising them.
In fact, the recent Reclaim the Streets was just that - a group of 1,000 or so protesters strolling along St Stephen's Green and onto Baggot Street, setting up record decks and turning it into a smiling, bouncing, blast of a street party. For four hours on a sunny afternoon, it was all theirs. They'd taken it back. No cars, no buses, no trucks, no hassle.
There were probably a hardy few itching for revenge for last May's debacle on Dame Street. But, come on lads, it was hardly Tiananmen Square or Seattle or even Friday night after the pubs in north Belfast?
Of course, the Garda were on their best behaviour this time. They didn't quite don Bob Marley wigs and start conga lines in the crowd, but they were polite and smiling, in the teeth-clenched way you'd smile at your drunken spinster aunt at a wedding, terrified she's going to try to drag you up to dance.
I even witnessed one sergeant, walloped on the shins by an errant skateboard, briefly pondering hopping up on it and showing "dese young wans a thing or two".
He soon saw sense, and frankly, he's lucky he did. With so many tech-savvy kids around these days, a video of a garda letting loose on a skateboard would have been on the Internet quicker than you could say "You're on desk duty for ever".
So, kudos all round. Even to the superintendent who took exception to me entering the Green as they were trying to usher the stragglers out.
On reflection, I was under 40 and dressed all in black - he obviously saw me as either an anarchist or a trainee priest, so he wasn't taking the risk of having some freak like that roaming an empty park after dark.
But - there's always a but, isn't there? - the whole thing was just so . . . middle class. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, it's just . . . well, put it this way, they had volunteers wandering around giving people free grapes and stuffing litter into bin-bags. And this is what passes for revolution in the 21st century?
Why could these "rebels" not protest on a day when anyone other than us slimebag journalists and the wrist-slapped cops gave a damn? I ask you! A sleepy September Sunday on Dublin's southside when all the action is centred on Croker for the All-Ireland final?
It's like protesting in the Sahara against the mistreatment of penguins - while admirable in principle, it's a question of timing, of impact, of anyone who matters actually caring that you're doing it.
Have you people never heard of direct non-violent action? Why not all tie your dreadlocks together to form an impenetrable barrier across O'Connell St on a Monday morning or rollerblade up the M50 at around 5.15 p.m. on a Friday? Or even weld your body piercings to a ministerial Mercedes? (Not that I, of all people, would advocate disrespecting our great elected leaders, mind. But it's a damn sight more effective than playing Frisbee on a deserted street, is it not?)
They're even postponing all future actions until next summer, "Irish weather being what it is", the pamphlet says. I rest my case.