Tommy Tiernan Show: The amazing story of two friends who discovered they were sisters
Nessa Hurley and Anne O'Connell on the Tommy Tiernan Show
Two friends who later discovered they were half-sisters and both adopted from Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork during the 1980s shared their story on the Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday night.
Nessa Hurley and Anne O’Connell met online and became friends, but Hurley was shocked by a call from the adoption authorities in October 2022 which revealed O’Connell was her birth sister.
O’Connell met their birth mother, who is still alive and well, and told Tiernan she feels sympathy and respect for her and other women who went through similar adoption experiences.
“The ‘80s weren't that long ago but actually, it was such a different time. A lot of these women didn't know how they got pregnant, there was no sex education, there was no contraception,” she said.
“They must have been absolutely terrified. And then you're brought to this home, I visited it since and it is bleak,” she said, describing Bessborough.”
‘We think of these places as being from the 1950s and 60s’
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) February 24, 2024
Anne O’Connell talks about how her birth mother went into a Mother and Baby home back in the 1980s #TommyTiernanShow@tommedian pic.twitter.com/JQFIqojNlZ
Hurley said she hopes she and her sister finding each other can bring comfort to their birth mother.
“I hope that now, her knowing that we are so happy, we’re delighted to have each other, that that lessens her burden. Is it too late? She's had a long life of carrying a burden, but hopefully she can breathe a little.”
O’Connell added: “She's a warrior. All those women who went through what they went through, were just incredible. It must have taken everything. And they're still living with it.”
Tiernan’s next guest was retired NASA astronaut Dan Tani. He spoke about his experiences in space, his Japanese-American family's struggles post-World War II, and how he married a Cork woman.
Part of Tani’s time in space included a four-month stint on the International Space Station. “I spent a lot of time looking out the window taking pictures of our beautiful earth,” he said of that time, adding he felt a connection with home from that vantage point.
“I look down and I get to see Chicago where I grew up or Ireland, where I have family and I feel a real connection.”
‘There’s danger accelerating from 0mph to 17,000mph’ 😯😯
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) February 24, 2024
Retired astronaut Dan Tani fails to convince Tommy to go into space.@tommedian pic.twitter.com/dTZiK1txj2
As someone who enjoys “living on the razor edge” of his professional life, Tani said he embraced a challenge in his personal life too: “I decided to do what few people have ever done and I married a Cork woman.”
Tani also said he felt strongly about being chosen by the US government to represent his country in space, particularly after his parents’ lived experience after World War II. He explained his parents were “forcibly removed from their homes” and lived in a camp with other people of Japanese ancestry.
“My family spent two-and-a-half years living in the desert in Utah, behind barbed wire, treated as prisoners.”
Finally, Tiernan met Booker Prize-winner Paul Lynch, author of Prophet Song. Lynch said winning the prestigious award had a huge impact on his life — and on book sales.
“You get €50,000 when you win, and then you get a lot more book sales,” he said.
“You get a couple hundred thousand books put into print, and that's an extraordinary number for a writer like me.
‘This is an act of faith.’
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) February 24, 2024
Author Paul Lynch says he is taking blind trust in himself when he starts a new novel#TommyTiernanShow@tommedian @paullynchwriter pic.twitter.com/H4WtuF7Kwq
“I’m never writing fiction that was designed for the spotlight, for the mainstream. I've always been trying to push it to the edges. So to find the light suddenly where I am has been very strange.”
Lynch said he didn’t start writing fiction until he was 30 and he said the Booker was an unexpected result.
“You sit down to write a book, no one asked you to write it. And the last thing you think is going to happen is this book is actually going to win the Booker Prize. It isn't an imaginable thing.”
