Josephine & Cate Kelliher: Josephine (37) and Cate Kelliher (28) grew up in Kerry in a "bubbly, nosey family" of six children - five girls and a boy. Josephine set up the Rubicon Gallery in St Stephen's Green in 1990 with Peter McKenna, who turned to script-writing in 1996. Cate "meandered" in a few years later and is now a co-director. The Rubicon specialises in contemporary art and Josephine represents more than 20 Irish and international artists.
JOSEPHINE
We were raised in Kerry, near Inch Strand, where my mum grew up. My grandparents lived with us and there would be at least two or three cousins visiting at any one time, so the house was always jam packed.
My mother was young and great fun and there were always so many people that I always had a sense that we were in this together. I think my mother expected we'd settle near her, but only my brother lives in Inch now.
I'm the eldest. Cate is almost 10 years younger, and I had left home and established myself by the time I acknowledged her as more than a baby doll. She came to Dublin to study and she settled right in straight away. She was very definite, whereas I was wondering if I would go off to Paris or LA ...
After college, she got a job in a bank, but felt like she was signing her life away. She came to work in the gallery instead and we got to know each other as adults, as friends.
Cate is steadier than I am. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, to jump in with both feet, but she stands back and measures everything up. I have no idea how long a day is and she is protective of me in that sense, overseeing schedules and telling me when to take time off. We get on very well.
When you are working with family, you don't dress things up. If you are piqued, you say so. A big family is a great training ground because inevitably you are going to get the whole spectrum of behaviour thrown at you.
Cate likes to boss the boss. Last year we were on our way to an art fair in Turin and spent the night before with the artist Nathalie du Pasquier. I am having a wonderful time and want the night to never end, but Cate says very authoritatively that we must be up for the 6.30 a.m. train.
Nathalie and I protest, but to no avail. So we get to Turin at dawn and do the installation and I'm exhausted and say 'Cate, we better eat, I am getting cranky'. So I go looking for food and realise that there is hardly anyone there - not even the Italians. So I go back to Cate and say - a little triumphantly - 'I think you got the day wrong.' Anyway, it worked out to our advantage; we took the day off and were model exhibitors the next day - had such a good time, in fact, that we missed our connection to Milan ... but that's another story.
CATE
When Josephine went off to Dublin, when I was eight or nine, she would always send me things in the post: cards, a T-shirt, a book, a plastic ring, I remember a tiara ... little trinkets. To this day, she brings me back something if she has been travelling, most recently five little lanterns for my new house. When we would stay with her in Dublin she would plan the whole weekend around us and we'd go to the Natural History Museum or ice skating or to the ballet. She has always been the best company.
I don't know what I would do without my sisters. They are always there behind me to tweak things in case I mess up. Only occasionally do I want to be an only child.
I started working in the gallery about six years ago, first as a Saturday girl. I ventured into it slowly; I think we were both anxious about the sibling thing. Now I do a lot of the day-to-day managing, which leaves her more time for artists and clients and new projects. The buzz and energy Josephine gets from the gallery is still remarkable.
Josephine was one of the few people of her generation who stayed in Ireland and set up a business - a tricky one, too - when the Irish art world was very small. She was only 21 or thereabouts.
I lived with her for several years, so she was my landlady as well as my big sister and my boss. I moved into my own house last July. Two or three days a week we walk to work together. We share a dog, which we bring to the gallery every day. We've bonded with taxi drivers who allow a dog in the car.
We all keep in touch. Josephine is off this week to the States, in fact, to see family. When our sister Helen lived in Capetown, she took us to Nazareth House, a home for orphans and kids infected with HIV. Several of the nuns there are from Kerry and Josephine came up with a plan to raise money through the gallery, which added up to €50,000.
When we are all together, we sometimes don't make it known that we are sisters in case it cuts the conversation dead. We do have our private lives, and there are things I don't really want to know about Josephine. She told you about the art fair in Turin? Yeah, I may have miscalculated ...