Because they were twins – double trouble and all of that – the Slevin family held the reasonable expectation that Emma and Kate would grow up doing everything together. They were livewire, brimming with energy, as fiercely competitive with each other as they were close. Sport was a release valve. The Slevins live in Claregalway, close to the city and the opportunity to try out a broad range of sports. When Emma and Kate were around eight years old, their mother Deirdre signed them up for a gymnastics camp. Just for something different.
“It was for a week, I think. And I absolutely hated it,” says Kate. “I hated it so much,” she remembers laughing.
But something clicked for her sister Emma. “I nearly didn’t go back because we used to do everything together,” she confirms. “But for some reason, I just said, no I want to go back to this. And I could never get rid of it after that.”
So the twins took two very different roads – not so much traveling as hurtling through their respective sports with stunning accomplishment. Emma had such a natural aptitude for gymnastics that the coaches almost found themselves redrafting their programmes to keep pace with her improvements. If there was good fortune, it was that nearby Renmore has a long established gymnastics club, with over 1,000 members.
Emma's first – and current – coach Sally Batley, is one of the most respected and knowledgeable gymnastics tutors in the country. She could not have found a better club. But the rest was down to thousands of hours and rare ability. Her progress has been supernova, breaking into the top 24 in the world and becoming the first Ireland gymnast to compete in the all-round world championships in Japan this autumn.
Kate, meantime, continued to play Gaelic football and soccer. She scored 1-7 in the U-16 A All-Ireland final for Galway against Kerry in 2018 and now plays with the county seniors. She also plays soccer with Galway WFC and the Ireland U-19 team. We spoke on the evening that Ireland played Slovakia in the World Cup qualifiers last month. Conversation turned to the sense that women's sport is generating more noise and profile in recent years.
"It's definitely got a lot bigger," Kate says. "Especially in the soccer. Even when I was with the U-19s Irish team a few months ago, it was in Limerick and there were nearly 2,000 people at it. I had never played in front of as many people. We thought it would just be our parents and a few fans there. But it was a huge crowd and a lot of seven- and eight-year-old girls. You don't really notice it when you are playing. You hear the noise and think, 'God I'm playing in front of so many people' and forget about it then."
Leaving Cert
Both girls are studying for the Leaving Cert in Claregalway College. Emma goes straight from school to gymnastics and trains until 8.30 in the evening. On Saturdays, she trains from nine until one and then from two to five-thirty. Wednesday evenings and Sundays are free. For Kate, pursuing both soccer and Gaelic football has become an ever tighter balancing act since she started with the Galway seniors.
“I have seen her struggle with it,” says Deirdre. “Your heart wants to do everything with it. But your head and body can’t always compete in both codes. It is just not possible.”
But she loves playing both sports. Asked to elect a favourite, she laughs and says “No comment”.
Emma still misses playing team sport, especially Gaelic football. "Because we are such a GAA house," she says. They still register her with the local club every year. Just in case. Deirdre and Liam are Kilkenny through and through. Like all Noresiders, they are intensely connected to their native county. They wear Galway jerseys to games only when Kate is playing for the county. When the counties meet in hurling or camogie matches, the twins and their older brother Mark, an excellent hurler, are steadfast maroon supporters. Their parents turn stripy in loyalty. That's the way it is. The arrival of Henry Shefflin as Galway coach provides the family with the perfect conundrum. Liam likes to assure his children that Shefflin is coming to destroy from within.
The twins are light-hearted in their attitude to themselves but deeply serious about what they want to pursue. Once Emma became absorbed in gymnastics, her day to day life quickly came to revolve around the sport. She travelled for her first international event when she was just 10. Sometimes, Deirdre and Liam have come along to major tournaments but the gymnastics training schedule is so rigorous that they spend very little time with her.
Inflicted chaos
"They are locked away in their own little training bubble. At the world Olympics in Buenos Aires, I think we saw you for about ten minutes," Deirdre laughs. "We didn't expect her to reach all the finals that we did so we were actually flying back for some of them."
The pandemic inflicted chaos on all sports. But gymnastics was completely wiped out because it is an indoor sport. For three full months, Emma couldn’t train at all. “Even when you go on a holiday, it is hard to get back into it. So three full months was very difficult.”
Eventually she was one of a handful of elite gymnasts permitted to return to the gym for solitary training. So at the beginning of this year, her ambitions were tailored to the limitations imposed by the pandemic restrictions. But things just accelerated.
“My goal was just to recover from training through the pandemic. To get back on the international stage and readjust to how life was before. But then my first competition in the European championships went my way. At the same time I had worked so hard to get there and the results showed that. So after that, it was six months to the World’s and I wanted to do the same thing. And I worked incredibly hard to do that. It was during that year that I realized what my potential was and to try and make those finals. So to actually do it then was a surreal feeling.”
The Leaving Cert will take precedence for the twins for the next few months. But they have become experts in time management and are not easily fazed. Had it not been for that gymnastics camp, they would inevitably be found together on Gaelic and soccer teams. Chance took them in different directions but they remain as thick as thieves. And they are only eighteen: their sports lives of the Slevin twins are just gaining traction. You’ll be hearing plenty about them in the years to come.
