Chat show hears astonishing story of friends who discovered they were half-sisters adopted from Cork mother and baby home

TWO friends who later discovered they were half-sisters and both adopted from Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork in the ‘80s have said they want their birth mother to know that they are delighted to have found each other and that they are happy.

Nessa Hurley and Anne O’Connell, who became friends after connecting online eight years ago, appeared on the Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday night to tell the story of how they came to discover that they are half-sisters.

Ms Hurley told Tommy Tiernan how she was shocked by a call from adoption services in October 2022 when she was told that Ms O’Connell, whom she had struck up a friendship with, was her biological sister.

Ms Hurley said that both she and Ms O’Connell had been adopted by “gorgeous families” and that she grew up as one of four and always knew she was adopted.

She said her parents were always supportive of the fact that she could potentially want to one day meet her birth family but it was not until she became a mother herself that she started thinking about her birth mother and wanted more information.

She said she was “appalled” after reading details of the conditions at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home, where she and Ms O’Connell were born, in the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes which was published in January 2021 and contacted adoption services to take the next steps in letting her birth mother know that she was okay.

“I was appalled at the experiences that these women would have had and as a mother it cut deep into my heart,” she said.

She was told that it would take at least three to four years for anything to be done and that in the meantime she could be added to the Contact Preference Register whereby she could be contacted by anyone from her birth family.

CALL

In October 2022, she received a call informing her that Ms O’Connell was her biological sister.

Meanwhile, Ms O’Connell who was adopted into a loving family and lived in Limerick said that she started searching for her birth mother at quite a young age as she was intrigued to know more and that having her first daughter “propelled” her into wanting to find out about her mother “and all that she had to go through in those circumstances”.

“The '80s weren't that long ago but actually it was such a different time. A lot of these women didn’t know how they got pregnant. There was no sex education and there was no contraception,” she said.

Ms O’Connell, who has since met her birth mother, described her as “a fierce woman” and said that if she was watching the show, she would want her to know how amazing she is and how grateful both she and Ms Hurley are to be alive.

“If I could just take a smidgen of that from her DNA and take a piece of that for my girls, I have two girls, and for them to have even the smallest fraction of that I would be so happy. I think she’s a warrior. All those women who went through what they went through were just incredible,” Ms O’Connell said.

“We survived an unplanned teenage pregnancy, and we survived birth in a mother and baby home where the mortality rate was one in nine babies. And we landed in the most gorgeous of families. We were lucky. We were very lucky so we would just say thank you. What a woman.” 

Ms Hurley reiterated that their story is “lovely” and that she hopes their birth mother who has had “a long life of carrying a burden” can breathe a little knowing that they are happy to have found each other.