High achieving Kildare twins graduate from world ranked UK university

Naas twins Órla and Aífe Conboy made news for being one of four sets of twins to graduate from the prestigious St. Andrews University in Scotland.

The sisters were awarded their degrees in a conferring ceremony at the university's Younger Hall and departed with an M.Sc. (research) in chemistry.

The pair won places in St Andrews having excelled at Trinity College Dublin where they got first class honours degrees in Medicinal Chemistry and were both awarded gold medals for exceptional performance in the final examinations.

Aífe and Orla attended the Mercy Convent Primary School, Sallins Road, Naas, before moving on to the adjacent St Mary’s College from which they graduated in 2017. 

They both credit their love of chemistry to their “amazing and encouraging” chemistry teachers Ms Anne-Marie Mulhall and Ms Norma Carroll. 

Aífe, who achieved 6H1’s in the Leaving Cert examination, said “we had our hearts set on the medicinal chemistry course in Trinity College Dublin. 

“It was all we wanted and we were delighted when we were both accepted”.

 Órla who was awarded the Cocker Prize in Trinity College for achieving the highest mark in her final year research project said “we both really enjoyed our first experience of research during our final year projects at Trinity College, which is why we decided to do a Masters by Research and now a PhD.” 

Aífe said they were inspired to attend St Andrews because  of its “great reputation, idyllic seaside location” and “most importantly by the exciting research done in the Chemistry department.”

Praising the work of Professor Andrew Smith and his team, Aífe said their year in St Andrews exceeded all expectations.

Órla added: “We both learnt so much, got to work with amazing people, and loved living in the town. 

“We are really close, so it was lovely to be able to  share the experience. We would both highly recommend studying in St Andrews to anyone who has the opportunity.” 

Read more Kildare news

St Andrews, founded in 1410, ranked as the best university in the UK in 2022 according to The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide and it achieved the same feat in The Guardian University Guide, this year.

It's one  of the four ancient universities of Scotland and the third oldest university in the English-speaking world, after Oxford and Cambridge.

In June, it ranked 95th in the QS rankings of the world’s top 1,500 universities.  

Aífe and Órla have both begun PhD's at the University of Manchester, where they will be based for another three years. 

They chose the University of Manchester because it's a high ranking research university.

And it offered them the opportunity to work in their preferred line of research and with prominent people in that field. 

Their current research involves developing new methods to make molecules, such as pharmaceuticals. They hope to continue their work to create new and better ways of developing medicines.