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SMILE. CLICK. And the happy faces of nine women are captured on celluloid

Arminta Wallace's face
Arminta Wallace
Sat Sep 22 2012 - 01:00

SMILE. CLICK. And the happy faces of nine women are captured on celluloid. The hairstyles and accessories – look at those immaculate rows of pearls – indicate that we’re in the 1950s. As for the eyes, you don’t have to study them for very long before you realise that these ladies are all members of one family.

They are, in fact, the Larkin sisters from South Circular Road in Dublin: (back row, from left) Carmel (17), Sheila (25), May (28); (middle row) Philomena (18), Monica (19); (front row) Veronica (11), Catherine (27), Theresa (23) and Angela (8).

Why were the lovely Larkins photographed for the Times Pictorial magazine? Strange, but true: on February 12th, 1955, the newspaper published a picture of nine Larkin sisters from Letterkenny, Co Donegal, along with a breezy caption that asked whether any other Irish household could “beat this record of nine attractive girls in the one family”.

A couple of days later the people at Times Pictorial got a call from a Dublin man. “It’s a bit of a coincidence, really,” he said. “I have nine daughters and four sons, too. Exactly the same family as the Larkins of Donegal.” Quite a coincidence, agreed the folks from Times Pictorial. “And my name is Larkin,” said the caller. Wow, said the TP – or words to that effect. A photographer was despatched to South Circular Road forthwith.

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Imagine the bustle and merriment that must have gone on as they all got into position. Times Pictorial published a slightly different shot, a landscape, but we like this portrait-shaped picture. Still as it is, monochrome as it is, it portrays nine colourful characters in almost 3D action: a waterfall of Larkins. Apart from the two youngest, who are more guarded than amused – suggesting that whatever has been said to make everyone else laugh may have gone over their innocent young heads – every single Dublin Larkin is bubbling over with mischief. The Letterkenny Larkins, by the way, looked equally stylish – if a little more serious – in their photo. What the male Larkins looked like, meanwhile, went unrecorded. The two families are not related.