‘PLEASE, MUM, I REALLY WANT TO MEET YOU’
MAGGIE NORTON WHO WAS ADOPTED IN 1972 APPEALS FOR HER BIRTH MOTHER TO COME FORWARD. ANNE CAMPBELL REPORTS.
A woman who made an appeal for her birth mum to come forward four years ago, has renewed her plea for her to get in touch again after she received two letters containing vital information.
Maggie Norton, nee Browne, was born in March 1972 and handed over to her adoptive parents in the car park of a County Louth hotel when she was just three days old.
She appealed for information in 2013 and she received two letters, she believes from her birth mother, outlining some of the background to her birth.
The letters came after Maggie had discovered that the registration of her birth, which was organised by a now deceased GP in Carrickmacross, Dr Irene Creedon, showed her adoptive parents listed as her biological parents on her certificate.
Maggie said: ‘I grew up knowing I was adopted and never questioned the circumstances of same until about 2011. I had a very nice life, I never wanted for anything.
‘My adoptive mother at this time had Alzheimers and unfortunately was unable to assist me with any information. So the journey began for myself and my husband.
‘In January of 2013 I put up a post on Facebook, with the little bit of information I had, urging people who might be able to shed some light on this for me to come forward. I
‘ There was a huge response to it with people wishing me luck in my search. A lot of locals from Carrickmacross came forward and said that they were aware that Dr. Creedon was involved in adoptions, but nobody had any specific information to offer about me’.
Maggie also turned to the national and local media for help. She did an interview with a national and local newspapers, radio stations and appeared on Keelin Shanley’s morning news programme.
In the first week of June 2013 she received a phone call from a reporter in the Irish Mail on Sunday that a letter addressed with only Maggie’s name had been dropped to a house near Carrickmacross for her.
It transpired that the woman of this house had also got a baby from Dr Creedon some years prior to Maggie’s birth and it turned out that this letter was from Maggie’s birth mother.
She said: ‘ When I received the letter I didn’t know what to expect. The letter contained information that I had asked my birth mother to provide me with, such as a medical history.
‘She also told of the circumstances under which I was born and how she was sent to the Shirley Arms Hotel with £20 the same night as she had given birth to me.
‘ This letter unfortunately wasn’t signed. In November of the same year another letter sent to the offices of the Irish Mail on Sunday for me.
‘In this letter my birth mother explained that she wished she had the courage to come forward to meet me but that she was afraid she would disappoint me. She hoped to have the courage to do so one day.
‘Four years has since passed and I have heard nothing further from her. As you can imagine I would love to make contact with her and therefore am renewing my appeal for her to come forward and meet up with me’.
Maggie, who is married and has a family of her own now, has just turned 45 and from the information in the letters, she has established that her mother, whom she believes lives in the North East, was in her early thirties when she gave birth to her, following a relationship with an older, married man. Maggie believes that her birth father has died in the past number of years and the pair had been ‘very much in love’.
She said: ‘I think my birth mother is absolutely petrified and that is understandable given the trauma she went through. I understand that she never married and has no other children. She has lived with this secret for so long and it’s hard to break the cycle as she has never told anyone about it.
‘She has never said she didn’t want me to contact her and in one of the letters, she made a reference to hearing me speak on a radio show’.
Maggie said she is renewing her appeal after four years because she wants to meet her mum. She said: ‘I have to know. I have taken this up and put it down again hundreds of times over the years. I have to keep going this time. I believe she is still in this area, and I think she would be in her seventies now.
‘ The need is there for me even more now because I’m a mother myself and I know what it is like. My eldest is 19 now and the family knows all about my search. They know she is out there somewhere. She is a link in the family and we have a lot to offer her as part of our family.
‘I sometimes get frustrated at the situation, not at my birth mother, because it feels like there are no more doors to open at the moment’. Anyone with information that might help Maggie can contact Hubert Murphy in the Drogheda Independent, 9 Shop Street, Drogheda.