‘I battled for years for my son’s birth cert’

The Irish Examiner first wrote about Tressa Reeves in 2010. Her case sparked the first-ever audit of records by the then Adoption Board and highlighted again Ireland’s murky adoption history.

Now, almost a decade later, the issue of illegal birth registrations and the agency at the heart of her son’s illegal adoption — St Patrick’s Guild — are finally coming under the Government’s spotlight.

Following a journey involving religious secrecy, denial, an illegal adoption and a false birth registration, Tressa registered her son as her own in October, 2009. She was 70. He was 48.