An "Irish twin" is an informal term for siblings born less than 12 months apart, not actual twins, since they come from separate pregnancies.
We have two sets of "Irish Twins" in our family. Brother 1953 and sister 1954. He was born April 13th 1953 and she March 25th 1954. Then sister 1956 was born Sept 9th and Brother 1958 was born August 13th.
Sister 1956 turns 70 this September and I'm working on getting a family get together to celebrate.
In both sets of "Irish Twins" the older one was born big and strong and the second one was born quite small and much weaker. I would imagine our Mom did not have enough time to build up her strength for the second baby after the first one had been born. For most of their lives the second born of the twins were smaller in stature. I told my Mom that had she not stopped, I would have had a younger sister to boss around. The birth pattern was boy, girl, girl - boy, girl, girl - boy, girl -- The end.
She laughed and laughed when I thanked her for not stopping (before me, that is). She said she wanted to stop after the first two were born - she had her boy and a girl.
I do not intend the label "Irish Twins" to be derogatory in any way towards any nationality. It was a phrase I had grown up with and I chose to share it here.
1 comment:
I've heard the term, too, and sometimes, "twins the hard way." It certainly seems logical the younger of each set would be smaller and suffer from the mother's lack of ability to recover well between pregnancies.
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