Comedian Dara O'Briain has opened up about the difficulty in finding out where he came from as an adopted child in Ireland.
The Bray man, who knew for most of his life that he was adopted, began the search for his mother in recent years.
And while he says his experience was mainly positive, the Mock the Week host shared some of the legal obstacles he faced in a detailed interview with the Irish Times as part of its Winter Nights event.
Many adoptees face obstacles such as access to birth certificates as the parents are entitled to privacy first and foremost under the constitution.
Among the adoption file that O'Briain received as part of his search, there were many parts that were marked "redacted" due to the privacy laws in Ireland.
He called the process "unnecessarily hard" and said that adopted people are not automatically entitled to access their start-of-life documentation.
O'Briain was first inspired to look for his birth mother after watching Philomena, the Oscar nominated movie about Irish woman Philomena Lee's 50-year search to trace her forcibly adopted son.
The 48-year-old broadcaster and author, who now lives in London, eventually managed to source his birth certificate and said "it's a huge document to get in your hand".
He continued: "I wasn’t crying or anything like that, but it was still ... that this other person is me.”
And while the search was difficult, O'Briain was one of the lucky ones and has since established contact with his birth mother and family including siblings.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been unable to travel to meet the rest of the family.
He told the Irish Times: "I talked to my birth mother about it today, and I said, ‘look, did you want this?’ and she said, ‘there was no choice in this’. The whole thing was built on shame and expediency and a feeling of, just get this done.”
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