'I got 600 points!" is the joke of the evening. Every group of friends has one kid who announces this lie, often hiding a wince of disappointment behind the bravado.

"All my work paid off, I studied for a long time," says Garreth from Lucan, who's standing at the top of a long queue outside the Purty Kitchen in Temple Bar, Dublin. "I'm going to be a doctor. But I don't know, because I have so many colleges chasing after me."

Is that true?

"No, not really," he says with a sigh. "I've no ambition in life."

"I got 445," says his friend Lauren brightly. "I'm happy. I'll probably go into primary-school teaching. We're celebrating here at Purty"

"It's a foam party," explains a boy called Michael.

What's that?

"Well, they release foam... and pour it all over you... and... um... it's deadly?" he says, sounding a little unconvinced. "You do get very wet," says another boy in a slightly worried tone of voice. A discussion ensues about the other clubbing options for the evening. I take notes, and it looks like a random list of nouns – "Dandelion", "Tripod", "Barcode", "Liquid", "Burn".

I slip further down the queue, where I meet a bunch of lads from Beneavin College in Finglas. "Keith Campbell rules that school," whispers one of them conspiratorially. "Put that in the paper."

What's your name?

"Keith Campbell," he admits.

Getting a straight answer out of this bunch is admirably difficult. When one of them says he plans to be an engineer, the others begin hypothesising alternative careers for him in suicide-bombing and prostitution.

At the Bondi Beach Club another massive queue is dominating the footpath. Adam and Shona from Clondalkin have already been turned away. "It's deadly in there," says Shona sadly. "There's sand on the ground and there are mirrors everywhere... just like... a beach."

Shona had already tasted this paradise. Unfortunately, Adam's ID has been rejected. "It's all worn away," he says glumly. Loyally, his friends have stuck with him.

This admirable 'leave no man behind policy' is a big feature of the night. Karl, John, Paul and Pierce, for example, are from St Paul's in Raheny and they're on a pub crawl. Right now, however, they're standing staring at each other in Temple Bar Square. "There were 18 of us, and now there's four, so we have to find them," says John stoically, like a hardboiled army sergeant in a John Wayne movie. This quartet are all confident they've got the courses they want in engineering, psychiatric nursing, medicine and sport healthcare, but now they're strolling the streets trying to find their friends.

"We reckon it's better to have one pint in loads of different pubs than several pints in one!" says Karl. "Anyway, the clubs are really expensive."

Are you worried about your futures what with the recession and all?

"We'll be in college for four years," says Karl cheerily. "It should be okay when we get out. We're more worried about the government reintroducing fees."

"Hopefully they'll bring in the Australian system where you get a grant now but pay for it later," adds John, revealing quite a nuanced understanding of the situation.

Outside Eamonn Doran's, Dave is celebrating his 460 points as his older louder friends compare the Tribune unfavourably to the Star. ("Now that's a paper!") "My class are gone to Dandelion," he explains. "But they're all D4 heads. I went to Rathmines College but I went to the Tech in Crumlin first. I get enough D4 heads in school, so we're going to Q-Bar. It's full of common people like me."

Are you looking forward to college? He hesitates. "I am... But it makes me feel like a bit of an ould fella, you know?"

By now the streets are tipsier. Up at Stephen's Green two boys are swaying near another huge queue at Dandelion.

"You have to have tickets in advance!" says Derek, wide-eyed and annoyed. He's just repeated his exams and finally got the results he wanted for accounting and finance in UCD. "Can you believe that?"

The duo have just been to Bondi. "He got in," says Joe. "But they asked me how much I had to drink and I said six pints and they stopped me!"

Why didn't you lie?

"That was a lie!" he says. "I've had waaaay more than six pints."

Indeed, the effects of alcohol are in evidence now, but, as a bouncer notes, they're no worse than the normal punters. Three giggling girls collapse out of a rickshaw. Two boys square off against one another and look relieved when their friends "separate them". Alcohol is loosening tongues. "See that couple there," says James, with a secretive hand over his mouth. "Well, they used to go out together, and this is the first time they've seen one another since then. He's got a new girlfriend," he adds. James is doing a portfolio course and got a decent Leaving despite doing "hardly any work".

"We're all quite pleased," says James's friend Ruth, who's hoping to study psychology in UCD. "But it's important to be careful when asking people how they did. Don't ask how many points they got. Just ask 'are you happy?'"

"People do lie," notes James. "I mean, is it true that 'Karen' [I've changed the name] got 600 points?"

"There's no way she got that," says another girl. "I was in some of her classes and she really isn't that smart."

At this point, I'm beginning to feel like the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and passing gardaí are looking at me suspiciously. I decide to go home. Yes, there was a touch of drunken debauchery on Leaving Cert night, but for the most part these teens seem optimistic, funny and loyal to their friends.

And for all those who'd prefer a bit of moral panic, hold this thought: civilisation won't crumble while we produce generations of kids so eager to form an orderly queue.