It was just after 8 a.m. when the first student arrived at St Mary's Diocesan School, Drogheda, Co Louth, yesterday, to collect his Leaving Certificate results.
"It was my only chance of getting a lift from Laytown and I wanted to get my results early," Peter McHugh explained. Happy and relieved was how he described his reaction to his results. "I thought I'd done badly, but I got 300 points, which is enough to get me into Dundalk IT to do computing."
Kevin Murphy thought he had "really messed up the exams" and was happy enough with his pass. "I'm going to do an electrical apprenticeship," he said.
With 525 Aidan Healy was very pleased. "It's what I want and needed to do business and legal studies at UCD," he said, as he used his mobile phone to ring his parents.
"I can't believe it," said Stephen Roberts. "I was expecting Ds but I got As in maths and physics and a B in applied maths. I was planning to repeat, but I won't now."
Few words were exchanged as the boys arrived; the tension was palpable. Although most students admitted to a sense of relief once they had received their results, there was little elation.
The boys remained low-key. "There are some people who are disappointed," one student explained.
St Mary's principal, Mr Eugene Winters, however, was very pleased with the school's results.
"We were apprehensive about geography and history, but the results have proved to be as good as in other years," he told The Irish Times. "The number of As and Bs is slightly up and no one has failed these subjects."
The results in maths and physics, in which the school had a great tradition, also showed an increase on previous years, while English and French were as solid as ever, he said.
While some of the boys said they would be celebrating last night, most of them were waiting for tonight when St Mary's holds its annual graduation ball.