John and Tommy McArdle, 65, come from Drumhowan, Co Monaghan, near Castleblaney, the youngest of seven children. Their father, a postman and farmer, died when they were five.
The identical twins played football for their county, trained as teachers at St Pat's and acted together. They were memorably cast as Gar Private, Gar Public in Philadelphia, Here I Come! which won them an All Ireland Best Actor award in 1969, the only time the award was ever shared. They married sisters Mary and Nancy McManus.
John is a short story writer, playwright and scriptwriter; Tommy is a film and television producer and director, recently retired from RTÉ. They have collaborated on three independent films, and tour with a show inspired by Patrick Kavanagh. A film based on the 1947 All Ireland in New York between Cavan and Kerry is mooted. Their recent appearance as bachelor farmers in a television ad for Bank of Ireland has elicited much local comment, as in: "Yez are a lazy pair of hoors ... "
JOHN
As a twin, you don't have to look too far for enemies; we're close but terrific enemies, too. You have to compete for every bite. My God, the sacrifices that were made for us. It's only later when you look back that you realise how tough it must have been. The older you get the more grateful you become. At the time you take things for granted. We owe so much to the goodness of our siblings - our older sister Alice was like another mother.
When our father died I remember the morning, going into the room and saying to Tommy "Daddy's sleeping" and Tommy said "No, he's dead." He knew. I've never forgotten that. He'd been to the fever hospital so he knew. We were five at the time; we weren't meant to be in the room at all.
We were dressed identically, and people didn't know the difference between us. Even our mother; she'd know us on our own but would sometimes have to ask if we were together. She had a habit of saying that one day she was going to drown the cat. So we drowned the cat for her. We were four.
When you've got a companion, you can get into terrible trouble together. Teachers would confuse us so we'd get away with all sorts of depredations or we'd blame it on the other one. That kind of thing. We developed peculiar mannerisms: Tommy would sit in the cherry tree and cry and sing at the same time.
We stopped dressing the same when we were 20. We both trained as teachers, played football and went on to acting.
It's a funny thing: we have the same taste in women, too. Anyone Tommy fancied I fancied as well. We first met our wives in an ice cream shop when we were 12 or 13. Tommy went with one, I went with another. I met Mary again 10 years later, and Tommy came along and married the sister.
We were both in the Abbey and after a while I decided I'd had enough. I wanted to be at home, writing. And that was that. I came home and he went on to RTÉ. We drifted apart.
As twins you have a unique relationship. I'm sorry the gene divided; otherwise I'd have a BMW and a Vectra, two wives, 14 children and plenty of money. And I'd write my own films.
TOMMY
If John wasn't in this picture, then it would be grand. Without him, I wouldn't have to look at myself so often. You can do away with mirrors but then I see him standing there, and no illusion is possible. I console myself by knowing I'm the better looking one.
We pursue what I describe as a policy of avoidance. It was quite late on that we separated, after sticking to each other for so long. We could talk for hours but deliberately don't seek each other out. We rarely get together except for work. If we are doing the Kavanagh show, we might drive together and rehearse in the car and chat on the way home.
The less I see of him the better. But no matter what we say about each other, no matter how hard we hit, we shake it off very easily. It runs very deep. Our mother used to say: "If the twins start fighting, don't go between them - because they'll turn on you."
The only real row I remember was about our daughters. My daughter was doing the lighting and John's daughter was the stage manager and it was all about who was getting a fair shake. In 30 years, that's about the only serious row I remember.
Our mother had a hard life. She was 30 years younger than our father when she was widowed and could do everything, except maybe the ploughing. The sacrifices she made to put us through college ... it would have been so easy to get us out working but she saw something in us and was determined - as were our sisters and brother. We owe everything to them.
As twins you always get on well with people - you are automatically a conversation piece the minute you walk into a room, especially when young and dressed identically. People remember us in Philadelphia, Here I Come! (or now it's more likely that people say "My mother remembers you in Philadelphia"). It was an interesting interpretation and interesting for us as twins to discover the small differences between the interior and exterior self and explore both aspects of the same person. To find out what it is that you keep to yourself.
The Bank of Ireland ad is getting embarrassing at this stage. The locals all say: "There go the McArdles, working for the banks like everyone else."