Quadruplets make First Holy Communion in Dublin

The last seven years have been “very busy” for the Nwedo- Nkiru family, but they are “strong” and “look forward”, says Turrty Nkiro.

The mother of seven children said yesterday, when the youngest four – Cindy, Leon, Sean and Divine – made their First Holy Communion in the Church of the Most Holy Sacrament, in Cherry Orchard, Dublin, that it had been a “great day, very enjoyable”.

The siblings made news in July 2008, not only because they were the first quadruplets born at the Rotunda hospital, Dublin, in four years but also because they were born almost at full term – 32 weeks – and because they were not born as a result of in-vitro fertilisation.

“I came in for my check-up a few months into the pregnancy and they told me. I was very surprised. I thought they were joking, but it was frightening also,” said Turty, interviewed in 2008 as she brought her three-week-old babies home.

She and her partner, Pius Nwedo, already had three children at the time: Junior (now 14), Tracey (12) and Princess (10). They live in Ballyfermot, Dublin.

“They really are very nice, very good children,” she said yesterday. “Sean and Leon are like the image of each other, are very alike, and then Cindy and Divine, they are like the image of each other too.

“It has been very busy but we have managed with help from my brother and my mother, who come around and help. It is busy but we do it and we are very happy.”

She is a nurse, working mainly in Beaumont hospital while her partner is self-employed.

“We work 12-hour shifts and then come home and do the home jobs. But they are getting more independent now, which is good for them, and for us.”