The past, as someone once said, is another country. In old Ireland the typical Leaving Cert student would walk to the school and receive the results envelope from the stern-faced, black-clothed principal, usually the head nun or brother.

When the results were issued this week, almost 40 per cent of students logged on to the Department of Education results website from outside the country. Most were probably holidaying in Ayia Napa or Ibiza.

All around Europe members of the Leaving Cert class of 2001 put down the sunscreen and headed to the Internet cafe.

A quick call on the mobile to the nervous parents waiting at home, and it was time to put the headphones back on and work on the tan. The class of 2001 deserves its place in the sun. For 18 months, as the ASTI dispute continued, they lived with the uncertainty of not knowing whether their Leaving Cert - the most important exam of their young lives - would actually take place.

Earlier this year the oral exams were abruptly rescheduled. Most students lost 12 school days. There was speculation that even if the exams took place, they might never be corrected.

It was the kind of situation that might prompt Homer Simpson to utter his catch phrase - doh!

This sad tale has a happy denouement. Grades in most subjects are up, strikingly so in honours English, Irish and maths. Results day was a nice day for most students.

It was a just reward for many teachers who put their shoulder to the wheel, once the dust settled on the dispute. It was a singular triumph for most individual students. Most of all, it was a relief for the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, as he enjoyed his annual fortnight in Waterford. Some of the begrudgers in the media said it was a stitch-up; the exam scripts were marked softly to head off the inevitable backlash from parents if the grades spiralled downwards. But what do these people know?

The celebrations, whether in Barcelona or Bohola, were under way within hours of the results being issued. In Dublin, the hot spot was the Temple Theatre, the dance-music mecca on Dublin's north side. By 10 p.m. there were large groups of students floating around Temple Bar.

Many will have performed the same ritual two or three years ago when they received their Junior Cert results. Cultural fads may come and go, but alcohol retains its grip on this generation of 18-year-olds as it has for a generation and more.

There is a line in a David Gray song about "talking drunken gibberish" and another about "chemicals rushing round my head". He must have been in Temple Bar on Wednesday night.

Gray is the philosopher king for many 18-year-olds. The acoustic troubadour from Wales was unknown until every Irish Leaving Cert student embraced his melancholy tunes and turned him into a superstar.

GRAY writes about feelings, love and emotions. He is a perfect fit for the class of 2001. This week Feargus Denman, the 18-year-old who scored nine A1s in the exam, said he was not afraid to describe himself as an "activist" for the things he believed in. He does not subscribe to the apolitical, free-wheeling world view of the so-called Generation X.

Many middle-aged teachers regularly comment on how most 18-year-olds today have no political fire. Certainly, there is less engagement in politics. Recently, Fintan O'Toole noted how more young Irish people voted in the Big Brother evictions than in the Nice Treaty referendum, and they paid for the privilege.

The class of 2001 may not, in political terms, have fire in their bellies, but then most have more money in their pockets. Many of the students who logged on from abroad were not roughing it in hostels and pensiones.

Many were on regular package holidays in comfortable three or four-star apartments. Few seem interested in starting a revolution. Few share Feargus Denman's taste for activism.

Feargus is different in other respects. He is a high achiever and he is male. In this year's exam, girls outperformed boys in virtually every subject, including supposed male strongholds like maths and science. The same phenomenon is evident in the US and Britain, where it is has provoked soul searching by academics about the influence of Loaded magazine and cultural icons like David Beckham on a nation's youth.

Some are blaming the laddish culture for the trends in the Leaving Cert. But most teachers will tell you that full-frontal British-style laddism of the type evident on the football terraces has yet to take root here. The good news, they say, is that most Irish 18-year-old males are polite and convivial.

But on a cold winter's night they are less ready to log off the Net, take off the headphones and put in the study.

A recent survey by Student Enrichment Services, the study skills people, found boys do 30 per cent less study and 20 per cent less homework than girls.

That is part of the reason they continue to languish behind girls in most subjects in an exam that places an emphasis - some would say an undue one - on memory and organisation.

For most Leaving Cert students, attention has already switched to 6 a.m. next Tuesday morning when they can log on to the CAO website and find out if the Leaving Cert points they assembled are enough to secure their college place. Despite all the hype, the trends are encouraging.

The explosion in the numbers of CAO courses - 750 today compared to about 100 a decade ago - has eased some of the pressure. The good news is that fewer students are now chasing more places. The rising tide of results may mean points will be marginally up this year, but parents should chill out, as the kids might say. Last year about three-quarters of those getting degree offers got one of their top three choices in the first round.

This year there will again be intense competition for places in coveted areas like law and medicine. But most students will secure a course that fits the bill.

The outlook for most of the class of 2001 is bright. But there is a cloud on the horizon.

As any teacher will tell you, the gap between the rich and the poor is continuing to grow. The pressure on those who cannot readily afford the mobile phones, the Nike runners and the fancy foreign holidays is intense.

Teachers say some of those now on holiday in Ibiza will have worked part-time all year to ensure their place on the plane.

No one wants to be seen as a "loser", the term most commonly used by the class of 2001 to describe those in the slow lane.

The good news is that most of this year's class face a bright future and better choices than their parents could ever have imagined. Fewer of them will be unemployed. Fewer will have to seek economic refuge in Boston or Sydney. More of them will drive shiny cars and get good jobs, although buying a house might present a problem.