President Mary McAleese was among the foreign dignitaries who attended ceremonies today marking the 50th anniversary of Hungary's uprising against Soviet rule.
Mrs McAleese attended ceremonies at the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest where there were violent scenes last night as police cleared protesters voicing their anger at Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany.
Hungarian police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at thousands of anti-government protesters on Monday, marring commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule.
Police also used water cannon and some protesters lobbed stones and other missiles at them. The ambulance service said 40 people had been injured although there were no life-threatening injuries. A policeman was stabbed in the hand.
As police pushed the crowd of mostly far-right protesters back towards a peaceful rally by the right of centre Fidesz opposition, demonstrators seized a Soviet-era T-34 tank -- on show for the commemorations -- and drove it at police.
"The whole crowd started cheering. The police started firing teargas, then the tank stopped," Reuters cameraman Fedja Grulovic said.
Reporters said police had fired hundreds of teargas rounds and used mounted police to clear protesters from the streets and paving stones had been thrown at the lines of police in riot gear.
Fidesz spokesman Tamas Deutsch-Fur complained the police had "committed brutal and inexplicable violence against peaceful people" in pushing the demonstrators into its rally and the main opposition party said one of its MPs had been injured by police.
There has been more than a month of demonstrations in the run-up to the anniversary following the admission by Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany in a leaked speech that he lied about the economy to win a national election in April.
Gyurcsany has defied calls for him to quit, and backed by his Socialists and the Free Democrat parliamentary allies won a vote of confidence to carry on with his tough economic policies.
In parliament, the prime minister said Hungarians in 1956 had no choice but to rebel and the country, which held its first free elections in 1990 and joined the European Union in 2004, was now a modern, democratic state.
"Despite the often justified disappointment and discontent, the majority of Hungarians believe that parliamentary democracy is the most suited to express people's will and to create law and give a programme to a free Hungary," he said.
Gyurcsany was later whistled as he placed a white rose on a new sculpture to those who died in 1956. Some 2,600 Hungarians died battling Soviet troops, more than 200 were executed and 200,000 fled the country. modern, democratic state.
Additional reporting agencies