How I found my sister

BORN in 1967, Northsider Paul Little was adopted by a couple who already had two adopted daughters.

He grew up in Ashtown, close to the Phoenix Park, and never suspected he was adopted because people used to remark on how much he looked like his sister and mother.

It was only when he was applying for a job and needed a copy of his long-form birth certificate that he found out – at the age of 27.

He put the fact that he had been adopted well and truly at the back of his mind for years and it was never something he was interested in actively investigating.

However, he submitted his details to the National Contact Preference Register in 2007, which is an incentive by the Adoption Board and various adoption support groups, designed to facilitate reuniting natural parents and the children they have given up for adoption.

One day Paul was on his way to a wedding when he got a call from the HSE. A social worker rang to tell him he had been matched with a sibling. He couldn’t believe it.

He had given a little thought to what his mother might have gone through as a single mother in 1967, but it never occurred to him he might have a sibling – a sister who wanted to meet him.

That sister was Maggie Lyng, born in 1974 and adopted by a couple who also adopted a baby boy. She had a wonderful, happy childhood in Trim, Co Meath, and was very close to her family.

As soon as she turned 18, she wanted to get information about her adoption. Maggie found the whole process incredibly frustrating as she wasn’t able to obtain any significant information about her birth mother, other than she had brown hair and came from Meath, so she gave up looking for a while.

However, in 2012, Maggie became seriously ill and was given five possible diagnoses, three of which were cancer. This time, when she went back to the agency, she didn’t just want medical information, she had to have it.

Eventually, she was told her natural mother had been treated for breast cancer and was diabetic. And later Maggie learned she had a brother who had been born before her.

Paul and Maggie met for the first time in 2013 and recognised each other immediately. Paul says:

“It was like looking at myself in drag!

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After meeting each other, Paul and Maggie now both wanted to meet their birth mother so their social worker arranged a meeting, which finally gave the pair closure and some of the answers they had been longing for.

?¢ Adoption Stories can be seen this Thursday (July 9) at 8.30pm on TV3.