Nothing could have prepared them for it. Perhaps it was the fatigue of 1916, which saw commemorations breaking out in all parts of Dublin city centre yesterday afternoon, but it was a sight that left many questioning whether they were hallucinating.
The veteran photographers and journalists had already seen action at Adams 1916 auction that morning on St Stephen's Green and had endured the assault by An Post launching its 1916 commemorative stamp at Merrion Square later that afternoon.
But shortly after 4.30pm, they were met by a band of soldiers, complete with peaked caps and armed with .303 rifles, emerging out of Government Buildings, and led by a rather dapper looking officer.
"It's not?" the journalists asked the Government press officer who was guarding the party's rear flank. He nodded. The military leader under the peaked cap, brandishing a rifle, was indeed Tony Gregory.
Later on the Independent Dublin Central TD confirmed that he had indeed been armed, and in Government buildings, but was in no way dangerous.
He was dressed in the uniform of James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army as part of a north inner city Dublin group commemorating the involvement of local people in that organisation.
"I was amazed, I walked straight into Government Buildings with a .303 rifle," he said. It was a replica, "but a good one", he said. He was with a group to meet Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, for that most modern of political manoeuvres, a photo opportunity to publicise a series of events the group is organising, including a re-enactment of James Connolly's speech to the Citizen Army outside Liberty Hall on Easter Monday afternoon.
So were the group meeting Mr Ahern because he was the true political descendant of Connolly, the last great socialist left in Ireland? Mr Gregory declined to be drawn on his opinion of Bertie's socialism. History, no doubt, will be the judge of that.