The violence that gripped the streets of Dublin on Thursday painted the city in the worst possible light.
But as the sun rose over O'Connell St at dawn this morning, it bathed the city-centre in a very different, more positive glow.
It revealed an army of workers, luminescent in high-viz, cleaning up the streets, loading the charred carcasses of burned-out busses onto the back of low loaders, figuring out how to move a smoldering Luas carriage stranded mid-street and repairing roads and overhead Luas power lines.
Gardaí stood at every intersection, diverting traffic and keeping a watchful eye on passers-by, amid a nervous atmosphere.
Outside the Asics store, whose windows and front door had been smashed in and the contents looted, Larry Teeling from Crystal Glazing and his colleagues were busy removing shards of shattered glass from the frames.
"We’ve been out since 3am this morning, boarding up the windows," he said.
"This here seems to be the worst hit. We’ve Cassidy Travel to do, Circle K in Dame Street, Tesco in Talbot St, each one of them has been hit so badly."
"Other shops have got on to us, we don’t know if we can fit them in today."
In total dozens of shops had their windows smashed during the rampage by gangs of what gardai described as "thugs".
Among the outlets also waiting re-glazing was the House of Colour Salon on Abbey Street.
There the staff were in remarkably good spirits, despite the ordeal they had endured the night before.
Manager Jodie Quinn described how around 7pm last evening, they were in the salon doing customers hair when hundreds of people began running past.
A woman then began banging on the windows telling them to get out.
"So as you do we all started panicking," she said, "and we got everybody organised and everybody left the shop."
Jodie herself went over to Arnotts car park where her car was parked, but promptly got locked into the multistorey by security, who were trying to prevent infiltration by the rioters.
A short time later she and other customers and staff were moved to the store’s canteen where they remained until gardai came to escort them out at 10:30pm.
This morning though, despite the frightening experience, she and the other staff in House of Colour were defiant that they had to open and stay open.
"You have to go on," she claimed.
"We are an Irish business, we have to continue to do that and open the door today and have guests in the salon."
Also reopened was Caffe Nero on O’Connell street, where staff were still getting over the ordeal of the night before.
Area manager of the coffee shop, Emma McCosker, described how when they saw trouble building they took the decision to remove the street furniture out the front of the shop and bring it indoors.
But after 7pm, as the situation escalated, they took the decision to close and lock the doors.
She moved then to the O’Connell St Lower store, where outside it the violence had escalated.
Emma stayed with her team in that shop until 9:15pm when they were allowed to leave by Gardaí.
"It was unsettling because we didn’t really know what was happening next or how we would get home or anything like that," she explained.
She is now concerned about what the weekend will bring, not least in terms of transport links for staff and what evenings will be like.
"So we are just going to remain cautious and sort of take it step by step and see, but I think, as you say, Black Friday weekend, we should really have been queued out the door, but I don’t think that will be the case," she added.
Many shops remained closed for the early part of the morning as they assessed the scale of damage and the risk of reopening.
Among them was Arnotts, the department store which was broken into by a gang, who ransacked parts of the store.
It opened at midday, along with other outlets like Penneys on O’Connell St and the GPO.
"Thankfully nobody was hurt in the events that unfolded at Arnotts and all our team members and customers, while shaken, are safe," said Donal McDonald, the CEO of Brown Thomas Arnotts.
"Arnotts is a very special place, made up of great people and throughout its 180-year history, Arnotts has not alone survived but thrived through tough times, emergencies and many crises."
"Arnotts is Dublin’s department store, it is part of Dublin, so shame on those people last night for what they did to our city and our beautiful store."
"They may have damaged our store and stolen some merchandise, but they can never damage the Arnotts spirit, we will not allow them."
"Our teams have worked through the night to repair our store. We will fix what needs to be fixed and open our doors, later than normal, but with the same pride as we always have at Arnotts when serving our customers."
This sentiment was echoed by Richard Guiney, the chief executive of Dublin Town, who said Dublin businesses are resilient, the city is resilient and the customer base is resilient and they can all come through this.
"We are not going to be cowered by anything like we saw last night that doesn’t represent Ireland, doesn’t represent the city," he said.
He applauded the community spirit on show, as people worked together to overcome the destruction and damage imposed on the city.
"We are going to come through this," he said.
Many tourists were also caught up in the appalling scenes of the night before.
The Holiday Inn Express at the junction of O’Connell St and Cathal Brugha St had its front windows broken, as visitors to the country and the city could only watch on in horror.
The hotel ended up evacuating guests to a nearby church amid fears of what might follow.
But this morning a number of guests who spoke to RTE News were taking it in their stride, having witnessed similar scenes previously in their native US and France.
They did admit though that the events had been unnerving.
But when asked if it would affect their willingness to return to Dublin and Ireland again in the future, the resounding answer was no, it wouldn’t. They will be back.
"There is reputational damage," acknowledged Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation.
"It is short-term. What we have to make sure is that this is a one-off and doesn’t reoccur."
A sentiment few would disagree with.
