Outside St Munchin's College in Corbally, Limerick, there were memories of 1969, when the ASTI together with the other teacher unions protested over pay for three weeks.
Mr Joe Lillis, a science teacher, was beginning his career then. Yesterday he was one of six teachers picketing at the entrance of the 204-year-old diocesan college which has 560 pupils.
One of them, Mr Brian O'Donoghue, is three months into his new profession after completing his Higher Diploma at Trinity College in May. A part-time teacher, he is on a salary of £13,500. "I like the job," he said.
Mr John O'Kane questioned the salary scale for young people with a mortgage. "It is a benchmark if you can buy your own home with the job you are in," he said.
"A lot of teachers feel compelled to supervise the exams as a supplement, and correct examinations."
Outside the city, in the village of Murroe, the hallowed grounds of Glenstal Abbey remained unsullied by the presence of picketers. At the largest school in the region, Crescent College Comprehensive, in Limerick city, picketers included a former ASTI president, Mr John Hurley. An English and geography teacher, he said the support from the public was gratifying.
"We are doing a difficult job, we are doing it well, but we are not being paid well enough. It is the first time in 35 years that the ASTI has been on strike on its own," he noted.
His colleague, Ms Eilis Casey, said there were added pressures due to new syllabuses, new methodologies and changes in society. Schools were the linch-pin of "a good, solid decent, productive society".
At St Clement's Redemptorist College in Limerick, the two entrances were being manned by the picketers. "They are going in one gate and out the other. We have to keep the feet warm," Ms Gillian Whitney said.
Round the corner, at Laurel Hill College, teachers were tight-lipped. They did agree it was a girls' school. And how many pupils were there? "None today," one said.