If I found her, my life would be complete
IT WAS not until she started her own search to find her birth mother that Theresa Hiney Tinggal discovered she was not the only child illegally adopted in Ireland.
And even though her quest started 15 years ago she remains hopeful of finding the woman who gave birth to her.
‘I thought I was the only one illegally adopted, so it wasn’t until I started searching that I realised there were thousands,’ said Theresa, who set up the Adopted Illegally Ireland website.
‘I wonder what happened to my poor mother – was she ostracised, how is she? I have been left suspended in mid-air, so if I discovered her, my life would be complete.’
Theresa, 63, grew up in the south Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham. She was the middle daughter of three but, from childhood, felt different to the rest of her family. Over the years she repeatedly questioned why she felt this way and eventually a relative told her that she had been adopted. Like many
‘I wonder what happened to my poor mother’
others, Theresa was registered as the child of the people who adopted her – in this case James and Kathleen Hiney, although Mrs Hiney did not give birth to her. Her older sister was the couple’s natural child while her younger sister was also adopted.
Theresa’s adoptive mother Kathleen – now aged 95 – admitted to the Irish Mail on Sunday last week that by registering Theresa as her own child she had acted illegally, if not misguidedly.
Kathleen explained: ‘It’s a long time ago. It wasn’t looking likely I would have another child and we didn’t want our daughter to be on her own. A judge’s wife told me her daughter was in the Coombe hospital and knew a girl that was expecting, who couldn’t go home with the baby. It was very sad really.
‘In June, Theresa was born and we were really thrilled. I do regret that I hadn’t told Theresa. I had baptised her in our name and I didn’t think it was necessary to tell her. I don’t know whether I knew or whether I was naive. I really didn’t know it was illegal at the time.’
On the day Theresa was born her adoptive parents were telegrammed and two days later she was collected from a nurse’s house on Collins Avenue, north Dublin. From there she was taken to a church where she was baptised and six weeks later her birth was registered with the Hineys listed as her parents.
‘I’m a firm believer in faith and bringing it out in the open if it helps others,’ Theresa said. ‘I am now going down the DNA route and I am hopeful of success.’ Her website is adoptedillegally-ireland.com