A bittersweet adoption story from 25 years ago... For Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1, listen to The Day The Princess Died by Paul Doran above.
So where were you when you heard about Diana's death? Oh that’s an easy one. I had just gotten up, late I think as it had been quite a party the night before. I’d just walked into the living room that wasn’t my living room, to be told by my grandmother, who I didn’t know, that the princess was dead. I thought it must be Princess Anne for some reason, but it quickly became clear from the tv screen that it was Diana. I didn’t really take it in and went into the kitchen and had breakfast with the parents I didn’t know either.
I’m not trying to be confusing, that’s what really happened. So I suppose I should explain. I’d been spending the weekend with my natural family whom? I’d only just met after a couple of years looking. I always knew I’d been adopted from a baby home in Donegal, a chubby, cheerful infant, they said, with blonde hair and a wide smile. I grew up in Derry, one of five adopted children and raised by my beloved parents Tony and Anna.
I never felt a particular yearning to know more about my origins but I was curious so when I got closer to thirty I decided to find out more. I was more interested in discovering if I was going to go bald imminently, or would have bad hips or a dodgy heart. But also, there was a knowledge gap in my life and I wanted to fill it. I love stories and I wanted to know my own.
I learned I would have been the eldest of five children, raised on a farm among people who actually looked like me. I would have known everything there was to know about cattle and GAA. And I discovered the men tend to baldness and while we have good hips, the knees can be dodgy. I also learned that my absence had always been remembered though never mentioned. I learned that birthdays in the family had never been celebrated as there was always one child missing.
Driving back to Belfast that afternoon, wall-to-wall Diana coverage on the radio, the rain lashed down. The wipers couldn't cope. I slowed way down as I wasn’t familiar with these roads. So, I pulled over and mourned a little for what had been taken away...
Listen to more from Sunday Miscellany here.
