Eileen Cloherty Scallon, an Irish American grew up near Dallas, Texas, recently shared her adoption story with Jacksonville Progress and explained how she reconnected with her Irish family later in life.
Eileen was eight months old when she was adopted from a Mother and Baby Home run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Dublin.
This Mother and Baby Home - originally known as Pelletstown and later Eglinton House - was among those analyzed in the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, which was published by the Irish government in 2021.
A total of 15,382 women and 18,829 children were residents in Pelletstown and Eglinton House between 1920 and 1998, the report stated.
According to the report, in 1950, the year Eileen was adopted, a Department of Health report found that while Pelletstown was clean, it was overcrowded and in need of repairs.
One social worker said in the report: "While I wouldn’t have any experience or direct evidence of what I would call enforced or forced adoption, I think the whole ethos and everything around it supported it."
However, the report also said that among the main complaints of the mothers who had been residents was that they had no choice but to place their children for adoption.
Growing up in Texas, Eileen knew a bit about the story of her adoption from Ireland, including that it was Catholic and that her older brother Tom was adopted from the same Mother and Baby Home at the same time.
Eileen's adoptive parents Joe and Catherine Cloherty (each of whom had a parent born in Ireland) pursued adoption in 1950 after more than a decade of marriage.
“She [Catherine] went to Ireland to adopt a boy, but when she got to the agency, she was told she could only adopt if she was willing to take two children," Eileen told Jacksonville Progress.
"I think maybe they saw that this little boy liked to play with this little girl, so they chose us.
"He was 18 months, and I was 8 months old.”
In 2004, five years after Catherine died, Eileen’s brother Tom, now a Catholic priest, received a phone call from Irish Social Services asking if he thought Eileen might be interested in meeting her birth family.
Tom was asked if he was interested in meeting his as well, but he declined. Eileen says she thinks it was because he was told his birth mother had already died.
Eileen told Tom to give the agency the okay to contact her, though she was hesitant at first, mainly because her father was still alive.
“My mother would have had a fit if she was still alive,” Eileen said. “I think my father would have been fine. We just never told him, and he died two years later, in 2006.”
Initially, Eileen maintained contact strictly through the Irish agency, with her caseworker wanting to keep communication limited to mail and phone calls.
However, in 2005, Eileen's husband John received an overseas trip as a bonus from his company, and they decided to head to Ireland.
Although the caseworker was against the idea, he arranged for Eileen to meet her birthmother, Esther, and birth sister, Jackie, who had initiated the search.
“We first met Jackie and Lally (the family’s name for Eileen’s birthmother) for high tea," Eileen recounted to Jacksonville Progress.
“As soon as Lally walked in, I could see the resemblance. She had the same legs, ankles, and hands as me.”
Eileen said Lally was a bit quiet, so it was her, Jackie, and the caseworker who did most of the talking during their first in-person meeting in Dublin.
The caseworker thought Eileen and John should proceed more slowly, but John retorted that they may never get the chance to meet in person again.
When they got back to the hotel after their first meeting, Eileen’s birth family had sent a huge bouquet of flowers with a note inviting them to dinner and offering to send a cab.
“When the cab pulled up, we met the driver, and now we have met him several times,” John told Jacksonville Progress.
At dinner, Eileen met much of the rest of her family - seven of the 10 siblings were there, along with their spouses and kids.
“Everyone brought us gifts,” Eileen said. “One of the most special was a directory of everyone’s phone number and email address, so I would have that for contacts.”
Since their initial Irish visit, Eileen and John have visited Ireland 12 times, while several of the relatives have been to Texas a few times as well.
Throughout, Eileen, who was the eldest of 11 children, has learned more about her history.
“I found out that Lally’s aunts are the ones who made her give me up for adoption,” Eileen said.
“She was 16.
"We think maybe my grandmother knew about me, but not my grandfather.
"My siblings think if he had known, he would not have allowed that to happen. But my grandmother was also pregnant at the same time, so I guess it was too much.”
Eileen said Lally was still in the Mother and Baby Home when she was adopted alongside Tom.
“She knew I had gone to America,” Eileen said.
In a strange twist, Eileen learned that her birth name was Frances Olive. Eileen and John’s third child was stillborn, and the couple named her Frances, never having known that was Eileen’s birth name.
Eileen further learned that her birth mother had six more children, though the children's father later died of cancer. Lally married a second time and had four more children.
Of those 10, one was also named Frances.
Sadly, Eileen's mother died in 2019, but not before the two were reacquainted after decades of separation.
Most recently, Eileen's birth sister Jackie visited the US for Thanksgiving with her daughter.
Eileen and John hope to visit Ireland again soon.
“It has been a very positive experience for me,” Eileen said. “I recommend anyone who is adopted to try to meet their birth family.
"I know it doesn’t always work out for everyone, but it has for me.”
In 2022, Ireland's Information and Tracing services, which provide access to birth certificates, birth, and early life information for all persons who have questions about their origins, including children in Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes, was launched on BirthInfo.ie.
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