Like most nurses who left their wards and patients yesterday to march around in circles on chilly pavements, Ms Fainsia Mee, a senior staff sister at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, was not happy.
"This decision has not been taken lightly by any nurse in the country," she said. "I would be the first to do extra work without pay, to work all the hours that you never get back."
But enough was enough, and the strike marked the first time in her 30-year nursing career that she had said "No". Emotional was the only word for it, she said, before she started to cry.
One woman's tears spoke volumes about the mood on the picket lines outside Dublin hospitals yesterday. Crowds of nurses, wrapped in winter clothes, repeated the same phrases. They were sad. They never thought it would come to this. Watching the previous night's 6 p.m. news they hoped for those three magic words: "Nurses' strike averted."
But there they were. The carers leaving those for whom they were employed to care.
It began at 8 a.m., and for a group who have never organised strike action before the Nurses Alliance appeared to be operating with military precision in Dublin. The nurses took to the streets in four-hour shifts between providing emergency cover in the hospitals, and a doctor's certificate was required by any nurses who could not attend.
The action had barely begun before passing motorists joined in with their noisy brand of solidarity. "Honk, if you support the nurses," one placard pleaded. Most drivers didn't need to be asked.
Outside the Mater Hospital, Ms Celine Moran (24) said she should be scrubbing up in the operating theatre. "It feels terrible that we are here when we don't want to be here . . . We thought the Government would have done something, but they haven't, and we have been forced out on strike."
Most out-patient clinics had been cancelled, and doctors were performing many duties usually completed by nurses. And although they were coping yesterday, one source in a large hospital said it was unlikely the same care could be administered if the strike continued beyond Friday.
Conscious of the strike, many people stayed away from hospitals, which was good news for those who were forced to attend for treatment.
In the accident and emergency ward of the Mater Hospital, Ms Mary Russell, from Dublin, was pleasantly surprised with the care her father, an elderly man suffering from gallstones, was receiving. "We were dreading coming in today, but to be honest this is the most attention he has received out of all the times he has come here," she said, looking around at the empty waiting room.
The scenario was less positive at the Rotunda Hospital where expectant mothers queued up to find out whether their scheduled appointments could be kept. One young woman who was on a methadone programme was anxious that she receive a scan so that her GP could prescribe the correct dosage of the heroin substitute.
"We don't want the baby to have withdrawal symptoms," her friend said. She was told a scan would not be possible yesterday.
The picket line at Temple Street Children's Hospital featured a level of frivolity appropriate for one of the State's largest children's health institutions. One nurse's placard was simply a teddy bear tied to two wooden poles while another bore a cuddly cow alongside the slogan: "There's No Cure For Mad Cowen Disease."
Ms Brid Joly, from the phlebotomy unit of the hospital, said she was saddened by the strike. "It's terrible that we are being forced to do this when what we should be doing is minding our patients," she said.