Blackrock College in Dublin, probably the best known of the Holy Ghost Fathers' schools, has produced many of Ireland's high achievers across a range of disciplines.
Many have fond memories, and even some of those who are less than full in their praise, past pupils such as Bob Geldof, also became high achievers.
Philip Sherry is a director of Sherry Fitzgerald, the estate agents. He was at Blackrock and before that Willow Park, the junior school that feeds the college, from 1960 to 1970.
He was the first of the five Sherry brothers to graduate from the college. The tradition has continued with his two sons.
"We used to live in Willow Terrace, which is a small terrace of houses between Willow Park and Blackrock College. The school was right beside us, literally over the wall. I used to climb over the wall every morning, as did my brothers after me. Then we just walked across the field to school," he recalled yesterday.
"From 1960 to 1963, when the school closed in the summer they used to put up a fence around the football pitch and bring in sheep. I don't know if it was to keep down the grass or for extra income. We'd also see the boarders in the school on a summer evening walking with their towels and togs to bathe in Williamstown down the road.
"There was quite an emphasis on getting involved in sports. You'll hear people often say if you don't play rugby you didn't go to Blackrock College. It isn't true. You were encouraged to play other sports. I spent half my life playing soccer, and there was also tennis and cricket.
"Living close to the college was like having six tennis courts and a driving range in your back garden. My father and I used to hit golf balls back and forth to one another in the evenings and he sometimes gave golf lessons to Father Stanley, Father Corry and Father Dwane.
"Not many families can say all five boys went through the same school. Losing the priests from the college is a very sad state of affairs. Their lives were there, they slept there, it was their home, they were the heart of the place."
Maurice Neligan, the surgeon and director of the National Cardiac Surgical Unit in the Mater Hospital and Crumlin, attended Willow Park and Blackrock College from 1944 to 1955.
His family lived locally at St Helen's Road, Booterstown. Mr Neligan's three sons are also graduates. "We were a little gang of local children and we went there together through the years and are all still friends. Sometimes we'd be scared rigid going in that something wasn't prepared properly. We'd get the cane or leather but it didn't leave us any the worse for it.
"I remember running a newspaper called the Castle Echo which got itself banned. It showed our worm's eye view of the world and was meant to be liberal, but after four issues it went beyond what the authorities thought was liberal.
"The missionary ethos is very strong with the Holy Ghost Fathers. By and large they were liberal, broad-minded and interested in the boys, and what became of them. It was a happy atmosphere. They were men, they liked the games like rugby and they took tremendous interest and pride in them.
"In my final year, I remember doing physics or chemistry some time in July and walking down the drive and looking back at the castle and saying: `I was extremely happy here'. I'm shattered about the fathers but I guess that's the way of the world."
Bob Geldof, who attended Willow Park and Blackrock in the 1950s and 1960s, feels otherwise.
"It's a good thing that they are withdrawing," he said yesterday. "The less church involvement in schools, the better. I wish it had happened years ago. I understand it and welcome it.
"There is a place for the church in education but there isn't a place for the church to be the sole guardian of education.
"I met several priests who were good men but I always found that the more robust and at one with themselves - like the people I met in Africa - were men who were not in education."
Geldof recalled seeing Eamon de Valera, another past pupil, return to Blackrock while President, "the revered old hero", as Geldof termed him.
"It was sports day and the boys were lined up neatly on the front field facing the balcony over the school kitchens. The priests emerged first, followed by de Valera, a tall, frail and almost blind man then in his 90s, helped by his ADC.
"The band struck up the National Anthem and de Valera, unsure of his bearings and tottering slightly behind the upright priests, turned around and faced the wall, standing to attention.
"No one noticed that he was facing the wrong way except the assembled boys, who were stifling their hysterics. There he stood, inches from the white wall, his back to the band as the National Anthem played on. Could it be that he did it on purpose?"