After A 6-Decade Search, 81-Year-Old Eileen Macken, Meets Her Mom For The Very First Time
Eileen Macken, 81, has to be one of the most fortunate people ever! The mum -of-three who grew up in Kirwan House orphanage on the North Circular Road, Dublin, had been looking for her birth mother since she was 19 without success.
Despite being happily married to her husband, Ronald, with two daughters and a son, Eileen, longed to have a family related by blood who could have been there in times of trouble, but her search proved futile.
READ ALSO: 70 years After She Was Told Her Child Died In Labour, Mother And Daughter Re-unite
The mum-of-three was originally born in the Bethany Home and moved to Kirwan House at age two, where she was given someone else’s birth certificate at 16 and lived under that identity for 60 years, Yahoo Style UK reported.
Eileen, however, began to make massive headway in her search about a year ago after she got in touch with “an excellent” genealogist who “worked tirelessly” on her case.
The investigation involved taking a DNA test in a bid to locate the birth parents she had spent the past six decades trying to find, and she finally had a breakthrough.
She told Joe Duffy on RTE Radio One that she was shocked to find out that her mum is alive and well at the age of 103. She said:
“I can’t believe it, when I got the word that she was alive, all I wanted to do is to meet her.”
She explained that she first started the search for her birth parents to find out about her medical history for her children.
She said:
“Healthwise it was hard.
The doctors couldn’t understand why don’t you know this, why don’t you know that.
I got a bit upset once and I said,‘Because I’m an orphan, I know nothing, absolutely nothing’.”
She said:
“I couldn’t understand, being alone, that’s all I could call it.
A lot of people have said to me, why do you bother.
I say, ‘What do you mean, put yourself in my shoes and you’re on your own.”
Eileen’s dreams have become a reality because, not only did she discover her birth mother, but she now has brothers as well.
She said: “I think we have two half brothers. I’d say they’re in their mid 70s. The half brothers are like myself only younger, probably about 20 years younger.”
Eileen’s next goal is to meet her mother in person but it won’t be an easy feat as she’s “across the water” and Eileen just had an operation on her eye delaying her from flying over just yet.
READ ALSO: Yvonne Jegede-Fawole Reminisces On Her Motherhood Journey In New Post
She said:
“My mum is 103 and she will soon be 104. I spoke to her on the phone but she couldn’t hear me.
She’s a bit like myself, I’ve only one good ear.
She kept saying, ‘I can’t hear you, I cant hear you.’
Unfortunately she is across the water and I’ve had two cousins who have come on to help me out since they got the word that I had found who my mother was and where she was.
They now know that all I want is to see her.”
She also explained that she doesn’t want to upset anyone by meeting her and didn’t want to “give any names or anything”.
Source: TheSun.co.uk