While no set is identical, their headmaster hopes they’ll wear different coloured shoes.
Between yesterday and today, schools across the country are welcoming new junior infants to the world of primary education.
For one rural town, the new academic year brought an influx of twins.
Just 19 children started in Kilmurry National School in Kerry yesterday, and most of them are twins – five sets, to be exact.
The school, which is in Cordal village (east of Castle Island), has just 106 students.
RTE’s Morning Ireland spoke to the families of the twins, who were surprised to hear the news about the five sets.
“We’ll all hear that there’s been something in the water around this time when there were five or six sets of twins going off to Cordal school,” said mum Deirdre, whose twin daughters Katie and Emma started at the school.
“But it’s great and very unique, and for a small local school as well, it’s brilliant.”
Ellen and Sinead Keane’s mum said the twins have the advantage of starting school together, which her daughters will definitely feel the benefit of.
“They’ve always had each other and any time that they’re going anywhere you always see one of them holding the other if they’re a bit unsure, or one will push the other in front to try something,” she said.
“So if they have to do anything it’s usually one of them will be hanging to the other one and she’ll push her forward to go first, so it’s different to one of the others going in by themselves whereas the two of them are always hanging on to each other.”
Four of the five sets of twins live in Cordal, while the fifth, Ethan and Ryan Quinn, will travel from Tralee every day.
“We decided to go to Cordal because they have a special class there for deaf children and Ryan is deaf,” the boys’ mum Christabelle explained.
“He wears cochlear implants, and so there are facilities there to give Ryan the best education and opportunity – so for us it was a no-brainer, and we were delighted to get a place there for him.
“Then, because Ryan is a twin, they were delighted to take Ethan.”
The school’s principal, Terese Carney, said parents have already warned her about certain chatterboxes.
“I have heard that two sets of twins are great buddies from preschool, so I have been warned to keep them apart for a couple of weeks at least or there could be trouble. I think they’re chatterboxes, or rather ‘Double Trouble,’” she joked.
