With their arms chained into a barrel of cement, "Dawn" and "Goth" would not be moved when Wicklow County Council brought the chainsaws into the Glen of the Downs.
The young women shivered under torn sleeping bags while council workers sliced into the surrounding woodland yesterday. The Wicklow Chainsaw Massacre, as the eco-warriors were calling it, had begun.
Their 2 1/2-year campaign to prevent Wicklow County Council widening the road which runs through the scenic area was always going to end in confrontation. Last week's Supreme Court judgment in favour of the council only hastened the inevitable.
"There is something wrong with these people. What are they going to tell their children?" said Goth as the buzz of the chain saws grew louder. Dawn said she didn't mind getting arrested even though, as a healthcare worker, it would make it hard for her to get a job.
It seemed as if the council team would face little opposition from some 50 protesters camped above and below ground. It arrived at 10 a.m. with two JCBs and four chainsaw operators. A swathe of scrub and trees on the eastern side of the N11 was hacked down before any "Swampy"-style tactics were used.
A man who smiled and said he was just doing his job had sawed almost half-way into a trunk when a young woman stood directly in the path of the tree. As three gardai moved in to stop her, she shouted: "I can do what I like, if I want to be killed by a falling tree I can." "You're a nice girl, Mary," they coaxed before lifting her out of the way. "Great media shots," said Mary jubilantly as cameras clicked.
These tactics were soon stepped up. Two men climbed trees preventing the council workers from continuing the felling. Soon afterwards, a chainsaw operator began working on the trunk of a tree while a man clambered about in its branches.
The mood soon turned ugly, with protesters shouting expletives as they moved between the network of tree houses and walkways in the forest above. At least two more attempts were made by council workers to fell trees while protesters were in them.
White crosses hung from the trees on both sides of the road, while a lone bugle player added to the funereal atmosphere. The sign declaring the area a nature reserve looked incongruous beside the felled trees.
Council workers took photographs and made videos of the protesters and the media throughout the day. A plainclothes garda was also understood to be gathering photographic evidence of eco-warriors possibly breaching the injunction forbidding them to enter the road area.
At about 2 p.m., gardai and workers left the area for "safety reasons", a council spokesman said. Protesters are already said to be locking themselves into "extensive" underground tunnels and more protesters are expected within days.