It's A all the way for identical twins

SISTERS CELEBRATE:IDENTICAL TWINS Clara and Eavan Gleeson (18) were in celebratory mood yesterday morning after receiving their Leaving Cert results at Holy Faith secondary school in Clontarf, Dublin.

Clara, who studied seven subjects and scored 700 points, was "absolutely thrilled" with her seven A1s, while Eavan, who studied eight subjects and scored 790 points, was "shocked, surprised and thrilled" with her seven A1s and an A2 in the eighth subject.

Parents Eileen and Michael, who accompanied their daughters to the school, were elated.

"I'm thrilled. It was a long haul but we've finally got to the end of it, and I'm delighted now that they've got what they want," said the girls' mother.

Despite their near identical results in the Leaving Cert, the twins have different career paths in mind.

Clara, who studied classics and French as optional subjects, has been accepted by Cambridge to study classics.

Eavan, who studied applied maths, physics and German, is now hoping to continue with mathematics at either Trinity College Dublin or at Cambridge.

Already an accomplished mathematician, Eavan represented Ireland in competition at international level at the International Junior Science Olympiad (JSO) in Indonesia in December 2005.

While Eavan admitted a "healthy but not too competitive" rivalry with her sibling, the twins have competed with each other in the past.

Both were placed in the top three in the country in the recent Chemistry Olympiad where Clara was awarded a silver medal and Eavan got a bronze medal.

Despite the hard work invested in the years and months ahead of the examinations, Clara was surprised with her A1 in English while Eavan was similarly surprised at her A1 in German.

The twins were looking forward to a well-deserved night out with their classmates now that the "nervous and nail-biting" wait - as Clara described it - was over at last.