It had the air of St Trinian's about it. The teachers were off duty, the girls had taken over the school and there was alcohol on the premises - lots of it.
It was the last day in the life of a much-loved Dublin institution, Pembroke School on Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge, better known as Miss Meredith's, after Kathleen Meredith from Co Kerry who founded it in 1929 with just 10 girls.
Maeve Binchy and Joe Dowling were among the dynamic people who taught there during its 75-year history.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell was among its pupils.
With the elegant Georgian house where the school was located now up for sale with a guide price of more than €3.75 million, a farewell party was held there on Saturday night.
"Pembroke School welcomes you for the last time!" read the chalk writing on the blackboard instead of the geometry theorems of old.
Grown women, some with their new babies, others with their grandchildren, revisited classrooms and leafed through a dog-eared leabhar tinrimh (attendance book) written in Miss Meredith's inimitable, majestic hand.
Until close to her death as a very old lady, she came by taxi every day to take the roll. The school survived her death and was run until recently by its new owners, Dr Pauline O'Connell and her late husband Bill, whose children were pupils.
"It was a school for the middle-class daughters of liberal Catholics and there weren't many of those around in the late 1950s and early 1960s," said economist Candy Murphy who was there at that time.
Rachel Downes remembered aged six being measured in the hall, as the mews at the end of the garden was called, by top fashion designer Nelli Mulcahy.
"We were getting tweed pinafores as uniforms," said Rachel, who was accompanied by her sister, fashion designer Lucy Downes, also a past pupil.
Former headmistress Ann Gilleran, herself a past pupil, said the school was run according to Miss Meredith's philosophy that if children were happy in their learning environment, they would learn all the better and have confidence in themselves.
Fun was a huge part of it, too, as evidenced by people's memories on Saturday night. One old girl remembered how she was able to jump down the whole last flight of stairs, others recalled a hilarious day trip to Wales with teacher Maeve Binchy and the hockey matches in the grounds at Sydney Parade. And what about the night Miss Meredith insisted everyone go to bed early because she was going to teach them long division the next day?
Legions of girls seem to have been half in love with conductor Colman Pearce when he taught there as a young man, and everyone wanted a tour of the basement, out of bounds in the old days when it was home to the caretaker Mrs Doran who cooked hot lunches, the aroma of which permeated the whole building.
When school closed last June, there were 60 boys and girls in the junior school and 75 girls in the secondary. They dispersed to other schools like St Louis' in Rathmines, the High School in Rathgar and St Conleth's on Clyde Road which has always had close ties with Miss Meredith's.