It's the night that every parent dreads. Róisín Ingle joins a group of Junior Cert students outside one Dublin venue on results night
Sitting in the corner of McDonald's in Dún Laoghaire, head in his hands, is a teenage boy with round glasses who looks as though he could be Harry Potter's slightly older brother. He is drunk. He is wasted. He is locked. He is out of it. And he is not alone.
It is Wednesday, the day of the Junior Cert results. It is 6.30pm.
Suddenly 20 young people are crashing through the doors shouting; "Who are yeh? Who are yeh? Who are yeh?" at the top of their voices as they climb the stairs to use the toilet. One of them is carrying a litre bottle of cider. The girls are wearing regulation ruffled micro mini skirts, some with flat sandals and long cords that wind around their white legs up to the knee. They shimmer like slightly worse-for-wear Egyptian princesses.
"Get 'em off yeh," roars someone appreciatively from the queue as the girls ascend the stairs. There is a clatter of stilettos, a few more roars and they are gone.
Outside the gang regroups. Bags of beer are passed around. "We better go and queue for Paps," they say, worried they might not get into the Junior Cert disco that is taking place in a nightclub around the corner. They talk about stress.
"It's been three years of stress," says one girl who is wearing a low-cut bright blue dress. "You'd need to have a drink to celebrate the results."
"I don't drink," says another girl dressed all in white. "I don't need it but I don't mind that some people like to celebrate with a drink."
Gardaí arrive outside McDonald's. A female garda finds one of the group in a lane and confiscates his bag of beer: alcohol bought for him by his uncle, he says, "because of the results".
"Scumbags, scumbags," shouts his friend passing by. The gardaí stand by their car watching. The boy who had his bag taken is not happy. I ask him what he has had to drink so far. "I only had four beers and a bottle of champagne," he says. His mother bought them for him. There were eight bottles of beer in the bag that was confiscated. "I'll just get some more, my Ma gave me the money," he says. "The gardaí think they are the shit but they're nothing." He is 15.
There are others here, eating chicken nuggets and sipping coke, who won't be drinking alcohol tonight. Shay, from Ballybrack, calls himself a designated driver. "I'll be keeping an eye to see things don't get out of hand. It can get aggressive but you just stay away from it. If you get caught up in it, it can ruin your night".
A female garda passes on a bike. "You slut," shouts one of his friends who has been drinking.
Outside Paps on Marine Road the mood is ugly, with fights breaking out over tickets to gain entrance to the strictly no-alcohol event. Just after 8pm a Garda van pulls up and two officers emerge to break up a fight. Some of the young girls are dressed in the kind of outfits favoured by lap dancers. As they wait in the queue they are groped and petted. They swat away the hands of boys like so many irritating flies.
Three beautiful Spanish girls who are waiting in the queue are dressed like nuns in comparison, but still warrant even more attention from the boys.
"I thought we were going out to dress up nicely, I thought there would be more beautiful outfits, but this," she waves her hand at the acres of exposed flesh and white Lycra, "is not nice."
Across the road a couple of girls who don't have tickets are contemplating their next move. They take sips from a plastic bottle they tell me is filled with whiskey and coke. They were delighted with their results.
"You work hard and then you go out to celebrate," says a dark-eyed girl nursing a half bottle of vodka. "We don't do it every weekend, this is only my second time being drunk. We are not out to get so drunk we get sick or fall asleep." Their mothers bought them alcopops to drink at home, they say, and when they were finished they went out "fishing" for drinks.
"I waited outside an off-licence for four hours trying to get someone to go in and get me stuff but in the end I rang my uncle and asked him to help me out because it was exam results night. He bought me a 'naggin' of vodka," says another girl.
A few minutes later the friends topple over on their high heels. They are a tangle of legs and heels stretched out like human road kill. Eventually they get up and totter back to the boys.
A bit away from the entrance to the club stand a group of people with pinched expressions who are carrying car keys and shivering despite their sensible jumpers. These people are the parents of Junior Cert students.
"I don't like the look of this," says one man. "The bullies seem to be shoving to the front."
A mother is visibly concerned. "Sometimes I hate this country," she sighs, adding that she is worried about her daughter and five friends going into the club for what will be their first disco.
"I would have suggested taking them out for an Indian meal but it's not what they wanted. The atmosphere here is so aggressive. I mean, we all had a drink when we were their age, but it wasn't like this. I bet they don't do this in France. I don't know how it's all ended up so yobbish. It doesn't feel safe."