The first day at school is always an emotional time for parents, but Veronica and Kevin Cassidy will experience five times the emotion when their quintuplets start school in Co Wexford on Friday.
Derbhail, Amy, Rory, Cian and Conor Cassidy celebrated their fifth birthday last week and now they are getting ready to become pupils at Réalt na Mara primary school in Kilmore, 2½ miles from their home in Bridgetown.
Yesterday Veronica predicted lots of tears, but said they would come from the adults rather than the children.
"The floodgates will open. They have opened already lots of times but I'll have to hold it together for them."
The five sets of navy uniforms are hanging up and the shoes and runners are ready to be stepped into. "I've got all the practical things done but emotionally I'm not a bit ready. I know I'll be very emotional. Their first day at playschool, I found very emotional."
The school is also bracing itself for the excitement, according to acting principal Yvonne Miller. "It's always a very exciting day so you can multiply that by five when they are all starting together.
"It's a completely unique experience for us, and for the whole country, to have five children from the same family starting in the same class. It's such a milestone."
The quins were born in the Rotunda hospital on August 16th, 2001, almost 15 weeks early, weighing between 600g and 780g (1lb 5oz to 1lb 11oz). Amy and Derbhail were the last to be discharged from hospital, almost four months after their birth.
Some 51 children will enter two junior infant classes at Réalt na Mara on Friday. Conor and Cian will be in one class, and Amy, Derbhail and Rory in the other. Their mother said they decided it was best to put them in two classes as some of them "can be a bit of handful together".
Ms Miller said the children would be "very much treated as individuals".
