Feature 15 Its sometimes fun and its sometimes not, because they could steal your stuff had a friend beside you. In fact, the twins only really went their separate ways when they went to college and that was a major shock, Emma says. Rebecca says there are lots of upsides to being a twin, but the downside is the clothes. Because were all the same size, your clothes just vanish, she laughs. The closeness makes separation all the harder and Rebecca says when Emma emigrated to Australia for a time, she felt lost. It was like a void. Identical twins Emer and Tara (27) have learned to go by two names. People mix us up all the time, Tara says. In school, teachers couldnt tell them apart, and even boyfriends have confused them. The identical twins are a force to be reckoned with, their mother suggests. As the middle child you have to be, Tara replies, laughing. We were the babies and then we were replaced, Emer concurs. Weve never had a birthday apart, she continues. Tara had an exchange in Australia, and that was the first and longest weve been apart, but I actually went over to meet Tara for our birthday in Brisbane. Mum Philomena recalls a time she was sitting having tea with Tara, when Tara dropped the cup and ran out the door. A couple of minutes later the phone rang: Emer had fallen off her horse. Tara was down with Emer before I got down. I said Tara how did you know? She said Ive no idea. I just got this feeling. Its not something Philomena has witnessed between her fraternal twins. Ten-year-old twins Alicia and Mabie have very different interests. The best part of being a twin is never being stuck for a friend, Alicia says. I like horse riding and pink stuff, and Mabie likes army soldiers and football, she continues. Its sometimes fun [being a twin] and its sometimes not, because they could steal your stuff, Messi fan Mabie says. They say sorry, but they do it again. Still, theres lots of things to love about having a twin sister she admits, though having different interests isnt one of them. When Alicias in pony camp, I get sad because I miss her. And then I realise how hard it is being a single child. Anna Farren discovered she had polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome when she started trying for a baby. We were having difficulty getting pregnant, she says. I took Letrozole . . . Theres a higher risk of there being multiples, which is why I have the boys. It was so difficult to get pregnant in the first place, that it was more joy. And then of course comes the fear, Farren says of discovering she was ex- pecting fraternal twins. I will say I am delighted that my first children were twins, because I think if I knew what it was like having one baby, then the fear would be way more overwhelming. Going from zero babies to two babies required an all-hands-on-deck approach. With one baby, I would have been jealous of people who say oh, he takes the baby for the night. There was no such thing, just the two of you were up all the time and that was that. It didnt matter that he had work and I didnt. My mum and my auntie would do a night vigil basically and come for a night a week and they would take the boys that night. Theyd be in the house and we would just get to sleep for the night. Knowing that was coming, you could get through the rest. The real challenge came when the twins, who are now aged three, were both on the move, she says. At the beginning, logistically, it was fine. They couldnt move. The public and people you dont know see you coming and theyll open the door, theyll help . . . They see you coming with twins and youre a bit of a novelty. They are very different, she says of her twin sons. And yet they are so lost without one another, she adds. One had to go into hospital for a night; he had a virus. So one was on his own in the room and he was lost without [the other]. Equally, the one in hospital didnt like going to sleep without the other one. Shes now five months pregnant again with a single baby. The reality was it could have been twins again, but we made our peace with that. If we could do it once, we could do it twice. THE IRISH TIMES Weekend Saturday, August 1, 2026 DavidSedarisontheseriousbusinessofcomedy.Page8 WalledtownsofIreland:RositaBolandvisitsWexford.Page10 PatrickFreyne:GlenHansardwasIrelandsbandleader.Page5 WEEKEND THE IRISH TIMES Saturday, August 1st, 2026 A WOUND IS HEALED Afterdecadesofheartbreakandnearmisses, Mayofinallyhasitsmomentinthesun By 2 Cover story A HOUSE OF PAIN NO MORE MayosAll-Irelandtriumphreleased75yearsof pent-upemotioninoneunforgettableafternoon ByKeithDuggan M acHale Park in Castlebar has always been best suited to those Saturday-night matches in winter, when the season is young and the promise uncontained. An ideal Cover story meme, the jokes came thick and fast. Through all that, Mayo footballers and supporters never shied away from speaking about it, nor returning to All-Ireland finals. Maybe we make too much of the football, Fr Leo Morahan, the former county board executive, said back in 2007. Mayo has the 4 Cover story 2004, when he was beginning his sec- ond term as Mayo manager. By September, he had the county back in an All-Ireland final, when Kerry defeated his young team. Like most GAA counties, the network of names and connections within Mayo football are impossibly dense: you could fill the People GLEN HANSARD WAS OUR NATIONAL BARD TheFramesfrontmanwasIrelandsbandleader, anditfeltlikehewouldbedoingthejobfor alongtime ByPatrickFreyne I n the 1990s, I wasnt convinced by The Frames. They felt a bit mainstream. A bit major label. I was a young idiot. Later, a friend convinced me that I 6 Music THE PIANIST WHO PLAYS WITH ONE HAND ONLY Freya Terris is the first pianist to pass their Grade 8 piano exam playing solely with their left hand ByJohnOConnor L ike countless other young musicians, Freya Terris discovered her love of music at the piano stool. Yet her journey has been anyt People 7 Fearkeptmefrom doingwhatIreally wantedtodoorsay Q&ARevJanetBroderick The Donegal-based priest on childhood games with her brother actor Matthew Broderick, how people react when she preaches sermons, and who could play her in a biopic Howagreeableareyou? I think life has made me agreeable 8 Interview I DONT LIKE EXTREMISTS. BUT I FIND THEM THRILLING AS CHARACTERS TheUSwriterandhumouristtalksabouttheseriousbusinessofbeingfunny onthepageandathislivereadings ByPatrickFreyne WEEKEND INTERVIEW DAVID SEDARIS A few days after I interview David Sedaris, I receive a thank-you postcard fe Interview 9 I just tried to get through my days [at school] without being found out as gay. Im 69, so no one even really imagined then that anyone could be anything that awful back then DavidSedaris: Idontknowhow tobuyaplane ticket.Idontopen anymailthat doesntlooklike fanmail. Photograph: Leonardo 10 Feature HISTORY EMBRACES US EVERY DAY IN WEXFORD In the first of a four-part series on Irelands walled towns, we visit Wexford, where history is quite literally in peoples back gardens ByRositaBoland I f Billy Colfer talked to you about history, youd sit up and listen, Paul Walsh tells me. W Feature field. We discovered that Sparrow was a surname of ship owners back in the 1830s, Hussey says. Hussey brings me out into their back garden to show me where, more than a century ago, a house was built against the other side of their wall. The medieval wall thus became a party wall. It towers 12 Photo essay Formedtotacklethe siltingissueintheriver Liffey,thereservenow extendstotheentirety ofthebay WILD AT HEART Photographs: DaraMacDónaill andEndaODowd Words: EndaODowd O f the 797 Unesco biosphere reserves across 147 countries, Dublin Bay is the only one to include a national capital Photo essay DublinsNorth BullIsland,partof theDublinBay Unescobiosphere reserve,isnow hometo180 differentspeciesof bird.However, conservationists warnthat,asworks tostopcoastal erosionareerected alongthecoastline, theirlong-term impactonthe ecologyand landscapemaybe difficulttopredict. Photographs: 14 Feature TWINS PEAK WERE PROBABLY MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER Whetheritsthehighsofalwayshavingcompanyor thelowsofsensingtheotherspain,thebestpartof beingatwinisneverbeingstuckforafriend ByJenHogan I relands birth rate may be falling, but the incidence of twin births continues to rise, with al Feature 15 Its sometimes fun and its sometimes not, because they could steal your stuff had a friend beside you. In fact, the twins only really went their separate ways when they went to college and that was a major shock, Emma says. Rebecca says there are lots of upsides to being a twin, but the T 16 Essay he vintage front page shows a street full of Dublin holidaymakers smiling at the camera, sitting on the kerb, waiting for the bus in the sun. But these early queues soon dissipated. Bank holiday spoiled by weather, announces the reusable headline. The citys thoroughfares were WEEKEND E Essay 17 Governments might fancy deploying bank holidays to foster cohesion and goodwill, but that doesnt mean everybody has to play along crashing out of the Fifa World Cup was that Friday, July 24th, became the bank holiday that never was. Would Keir Starmers mooted last act have applied across 18 Feature BE LIKE JOHN LENNON AND BUY AN IRISH ISLAND Four islands for sale off Mayo, Donegal, Tipperary and Galway, with bidding starting at 299,000 ByJessicaDoyle W hen you attract screaming fans everywhere you go, what do you do to get some peace and quiet? You buy an island, of course. Tha People 19 SARAH MOSS Teenage dieting made me an expert in mental arithmetic I bofin. It is suitable for grazing and features two natural freshwater lakes. The island measures 1.2km by 0.4km and rises to a maximum height of 63.3m above sea level. It is a Special Protection Area under the EU Bird 20 Environment TOMAÍ Ó CONGHAILE Our beautiful, troubled planet needs a skilled reconciler T he World Cup may be over but the fallout continues: Trumps unwanted interventions; Germanys early exit; football not coming home; Argentinas post-final petulance. Not to mention, of course, that banner. Environment 21 British navy, spent several days imprisoned in the Tower of London on corruption charges, and died of smallpox before reaching 40. Initially, a strait running between the two main islands was named after him and, by 1765, the Falkland Islands had become the English name for the entire 22 Obituaries FIRST WOMAN DIRECTOR OF A NATIONAL INSTITUTION, LIBRARIAN AND ACADEMIC Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon Born: January 28th, 1943 Died: July 23rd, 2026 Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon, who has died peacefully aged 83 at Blackrock Hospice, Dublin, was a leading light in that remarkable generat Obituaries 23 RENOWNED ORNITHOLOGIST AND COMIC ACTOR WHO STARRED IN THE GOODIES Bill Oddie BillOddiewasamemberofcomedy trioTheGoodies,whoseanarchicTV sketchshowairedinthe1970sand 1980s.Photograph:IanGavan/Getty Born: July 7th, 1941 Died: July 25th, 2026 Bill Oddie, who has died aged 85, was a mul 24 Last word DAVID McWILLIAMS ThefirstvictimofAI? Theeconomy W e are in an era of great technological advances, or so say all the tech bros who are championing not just AI, but a whole host of technological innovations from finance and healthcare to supply chain management and communications. In