Assembly members couldn't resist childish quips, even on their last day in office, writes Suzanne Breen
It has been called the biggest sectarian banquet in Western Europe and that didn't change even for the Last Supper.
Gathered for their final meal, before their powers were suspended at midnight, the North's Assembly members continued their policy of voluntary apartheid in the Stormont canteen.
That's the way it has been for four years and that's the way it was to the end. Sinn Féin sits nearest the food counter, then comes the SDLP. The Ulster Unionists congregate at the tables further down the room, and those by the door belong firmly to the DUP.
"They never dined together. They never took the chance to get to know each other," lamented one journalist as Assembly members tucked into lamb, beef casserole and gammon steak. "Eat with Sinn Féin? Never!" said the DUP's Sammy Wilson.
"I've been tempted to eat them many times but cannibalism isn't allowed so I just had to settle for chewing their heads off in Assembly debates."
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams made a rare appearance in the canteen to dine with party workers.
At the SDLP table, they were giggling over a leaflet. It showed a picture of Mr Adams in a republican-style black beret, and Frank Spencer, star of the 1970s show Some Mothers Do Have 'Em, in a less threatening beret. "One is a figure of fun. One is not a member of the IRA," it read.
At the DUP table, there was mock seriousness as suspension approached. "This is a very serious day," declared Assembly member Jim Wells. "Anyone making jokes about it should be shot on sight!"
UK Unionist leader Bob McCartney said he certainly wasn't sad about suspension. "I've just seen Reg Empey, Mark Durkan and Dermot Nesbitt waiting for their ministerial cars. It will be the last time their bottoms slide about the shiny leather.
"A million pounds has been spent on these cars while our hospital corridors are festooned with elderly people on trolleys. It's truly sick," he said.
Back in the Assembly chamber, the arguing continued to the end.
Sinn Féin Health Minister Bairbre de Brún and Education Minister Martin McGuinness faced their final grilling at question time.
Jane Morrice of the Women's Coalition complained to Ms de Brún about an 82-year-old woman waiting for surgery to remove a brain tumour for almost a year.
Sammy Wilson wasn't happy with Mr McGuinness's answer to an education query. For "someone famed for his lengthy silences during interrogation", the Sinn Féin luminary had been remarkably loquacious "speaking on the question for six minutes but avoiding giving an answer".
When Mr McGuinness, referred to "my department", unionists taunted that it wouldn't be his for long. "You will be Cinderella when the clock strikes 12," somebody said. "More like the midnight cowboy," someone else shouted.
But Mr McGuinness was in statesmanlike mode. Everybody, including DUP ministers, had done good work at Stormont, he said. While he was sure the new direct rule ministers taking over were "all good and decent people", they weren't local people with local knowledge and he feared suspension would harm the economy.
"Hey, didn't the Provos not so long ago want to wreck the 'sectarian six-county' economy and think British ministers were legitimate targets?" remarked an SDLP member later. Some things, even in Northern Ireland it seems, do change after all.