‘It never occurs to you that you might be adopted’

Fianna Fáil Senator Averil Power doesn’t quite remember the first time she learned she had been adopted.

“I was about nine or 10,” said Ms Power, who lives in the Bayside area of north Dublin with her husband, Fionnan Sheahan, political editor of the Irish Independent, and their two dogs, Frankie and Charlie.

She will never forget, though, the moment she met her birth mother: “It was on Aug 27, 2007, in the office of Barnardos. When I saw her walk in the door, I could not say anything and neither could she. We just hugged and cried.”