Two of them. O'Carroll and O'Leary. Both Irish. Both from Cork. Both climbing to the top of Mount Everest, the tallest peak in the world, within ten days of each other.

The duo's accomplishments have made headlines around the globe. Clare O'Leary was the first to reach the top, on May 18. Samantha O'Carroll followed her on May 27.

O'Leary is a medical doctor, O'Carroll is a student at University College Dublin. It was O'Leary's second attempt, O'Carroll's first.

When Clare O'Leary reached the summit she used her cell phone to dial her parents' home in Bandon and talked to her mother and father, Kevin and Alice.

"I'd said I might not call because I didn't want them to be waiting. If the weather was too bad, I wouldn't have called them at all. But it was brilliant to be able to do it--to call home from the very top of Mt. Everest," she said.

In an interview published in the Irish Independent she described the view from the top.

"When you get there, the summit is about the size of a snooker table and you're just looking down on all these amazing Himalayan mountains that you've read about and heard about. "A lot of them you've seen on the trek in and then, to be higher than all of those, is absolutely incredible. It's amazing."

Her climbing companion, Pat Falvey, became the first Irishman to reach the summit from both Mt. Everest's north and south faces.

Samantha O'Carroll, who hails from Rochestown, was a member of a New Zealand team. Her mother, Dolores, said Samantha's dad, Blaise, had joked that his daughter might set her sights on Mt. Everest after an earlier climb in Argentina where she reached one 7,000 ft. summit. Her daughter took him seriously, began training in earnest and, when she learned there was no space on an Irish team, used the Internet to contact the New Zealand team which had a spot open.

Samantha's success was due to a miraculous break in the weather, which had been woefully bad for a number of days during which other climbers, including Canadian women climber Shaunna Burke, had to abandon their attempts. Shaunna has vowed to make a second attempt another season. We hope she has the weather on her side when does. Clare O'Leary knows the disappointment she must feel.

All hail Clare and Samantha, the toast of the Irish at home and in Canada!

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