Thread by @ireland

So as I mentioned on Monday, I was adopted as a baby. It’s been a weird & wonderful part of my life & part of me, so I thought I’d share a bit about the experience. I’ll be making no political statements or judgments, just my story. Feel free to ask me anything. 😀

I was born in Bessborough Mother & Baby home in Cork in the early 80’s, run by the sisters of the sacred hearts of Jesus & Mary. My birth mother had “got into trouble” & had gone in pregnant, & left alone. Baby me stayed with the Nuns, & the Catholic Protection & Rescue society.

I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it was for her to have to leave me there & go home, I think about it sometimes with my own kids. I’ve no idea who looked after me. I wonder who came when I cried?

So after a few months hanging with Nuns, I was brought on a train to Dublin to meet my folks. This was the result of a 2 year application & vetting period for them. I got a new name & family & settled quick, but it took a whole stressful year of fear before it was signed & legal.

From a tough situation, I landed on my feet, with a incredibly loving & supportive family, & they felt they had too. Two years later my Brother arrived in similar circumstances, & I had a friend for life who could explain clothes, rugby, & how to cook pasta.

So life went on like anyone else’s, all was good. The *only* thing that we knew about before was what the social worker had said- Irish Mother, Father from Malta. I was sallow skinned in school when everyone else was pure white, & got bullied. I was Choc Ice, Coco pop, N word.

I felt different, I wondered who this foreign dad was. I made up stories that he was American basketballer. I looked at brown skinned men in shops & wondered was he my birth dad? In my teens I displayed symptoms of Adopted Child Syndrome (ACS)..

..which apparently leads to people questioning who they are, issues with authority, & various attention deficit disorders, nothing too crazy, but those sorts of things were always there. Questions. Theories. Issues! My folks were always amazing with this, but it was always there.

(ACS is disputed, and I’m certainly not saying it is or isn’t a thing, but I recognise the symptoms in me, but I’m a contradiction everywhere - I like attention, but also hate it, loud & also sometimes quiet, outgoing but also shy & sometimes come across rude due to that!)

Anyway, due to fear, or not wanting to upset my folks, or maybe just not wanting the stress, I never looked for my birth parents. It didn’t stop me wondering, or writing about it, & I finally did in a song called “Petardu”.

I only wanted to write once about it, so I spent 2 years getting it right. I’d seen the word PETARDO (a little firecracker / banger) graffitied while on tour in Spain & accidentally mixed it with the Spanish slang for a “loose woman” or “of loose morals”. loved the juxtaposition.

It was about who these birth parents could have been, and how they could have felt. I couldn’t finish it, until I wrote the words:
“now we’re related by blood, someone else’s blood... separated from us, to someone else’s love”. I sat, and cried. And I knew I was done.

It was scary putting that song out, but it was cathartic & a step forward in my songwriting & in myself.

Around that time I met my wife, Emily, & things began to settle & make sense in my life, & I began the process of the birth parents search. I contacted Cunamh (formerly the CPRS from earlier) & applied to get my files. 3 months later, myself & Em went in to see my records. 😮

The files were from 6 month before (birth mother’s contact) to 3 months after. Limited but specific details. Emily cried all the way through, but... I didn’t really feel anything. It felt like I was reading about someone else’s life. It wasn’t what I expected. I felt a bit empty.

[I did find out he was 5 foot 2 and loved basketball, so y’know, there was that. :) ]

I applied to go ahead & try make contact, & 6th months later, I found out she was alive (a fear I had was that she had passed) & had said that some day she would be happy to get in contact. This was the middle of the Little Sparks album campaign, so was all over the shop.

Then the first letter came & it blew my mind. I had 3 half sisters & a half brother! Oh god. Life was good with them! Life was good with me. Next letter, I told them I was in a band called Delorentos. Then the maddest thing happened.

So, The first time my birth mother & my 4 half siblings saw me was when I was performing Petardu live on the Late Late Show.

Since then we’ve met, shared stories, & got to know each other. I’ve also gotten closer to my folks through it all. They are all lovely people, & we’re feeling our way in this interesting and different situation.... and life is good. X

If you are adopted, I don’t know if you will have this experience, or even a good experience, it’s different for everyone, but you might answer a few questions that itch you in your brain. Feel free to contact me on @321kieran if you have any further questions & I’ll try to help.

Oh! And the pictures are from this - the best book ever by John and @FattiBurke !