John Richards is on a mission to find his half sibling that he has only read about in a letter, 50 years ago.
That letter was addressed to his father but John saw it. He couldn't ask his father about it because not long after the letter arrived, John's Dad disappeared from his life forever.
Below, documentary producer Shauna McGreevy writes about this week's RTÉ Documentary On One, Girl From The Letter - listen to it above.
Last March, I read an article in the Irish Independent that really caught my eye.
The headline ran as follows "I don't think I can forgive my father for leaving us a second time but we'd still love to find his family in the UK".
I was struck by this strong statement. The quote came from John Richards, a 74 old year old man from Fermoy, Cork. Reading the article, it was clear he was a man on a mission. I wanted to follow that mission.
My first port of call was to talk to John so I went looking for his number, and eventually got it - not John's number, mind you, but his wife Nell's. You see, John, by his own admission, is not very tech savvy. He has a mobile phone reminiscent of the year 2000 sitting on a shelf in the corner of his living room. He rarely uses it. So, essentially all communication goes through Nell!...
I digress.
I spoke to Nell, and she was very warm and forthcoming, as was John, when Nell put me on to him. And so began the first of many chats that have taken place over the last six months. They were on a quest and were happy to let me come along on the journey.
I made the first trip to Fermoy in April. Welcomed into their home, John told me his story in detail, through laughter, tears and everything in between.
John is in the unusual position that he knows very little about his father, John Sr. The latter abandoned him, his brother Donal, and their mother, Sheila, when John was 4 years old. He made a brief reappearance 20 years later, around the time of John’s wedding to Nell, but following receipt of a letter from England, he vanished again. During our chats, yes, there was a lot of talk about his father, but there was as much about the little girl mentioned in the letter all those years ago. The letter has disappeared in the intervening years but the contents of it have stayed with John. The little girl would have been 7 years old at the time, meaning she would be in her mid 50s now. John wanted to find her.
We chatted about how to proceed and agreed that a genealogist would be really helpful! There is a whole world of family trees and DNA websites that can be very hard to navigate if you are not in the know, so an expert could make all the difference.
To help John, I did a little research and found such a person, in the shape of PJ Hogan, from Erin International. It quickly became apparent that PJ was the man for the job! His passion for genealogy is infectious. He could talk for hours about family trees and DNA! What's more, he cares a lot about the people he helps, and is mindful of the sensitivities surrounding such situations. PJ spent valuable time with John and Nell, listening intently to their story. You have to go back to go forward, so any details about his father’s past would be essential! After garnering every bit of information possible, PJ went off to investigate.
Alongside PJ’s own research, he felt that it would be important to do a DNA test. If there was someone out there who had the same DNA, it could lead to something. So, John did a test and sent it off to be analysed.
We were all on tender hooks waiting for the results to come back. They say it can take up to 6 weeks, but it might come back quicker. Nell was checking her email every few days and I was ringing her regularly! While this waiting game ticked on, PJ was busy in the background on the paper trail. Just shy of 4 weeks later an email from the DNA company came through. There was great excitement and trepidation about what the contents of the results would be. Between that and the work PJ was putting into the paper trail side of things, John was hoping that their would finally be some answers to his many questions.
Listen to more from RTÉ Documentary On One here.
