'I would like Dad to have some peace': Helen O'Grady's search for her father's birth mother

John O'Grady spent a lifetime searching for his mother Bridget. Since his death earlier this year, his daughter Helen has taken up the search in the hope it will let him rest in peace

The infant Helen O’Grady with her dad, John O’Grady. As a baby, John was left on the doorstep of a mother and baby home. Later in life he moved to Britain and ultimately served as a soldier there.

The daughter of a man who died without finding out what happened to his birth mother plans to continue his lifelong search for answers.

For most of his childhood, John O’Grady was told by the nuns that his mother Bridget left him on a doorstep of St Patrick’s mother and baby home in Dublin in 1945 because she was unable to care for him.

He spent the rest of his childhood in industrial schools, where he was beaten and sexually abused.

Mr O’Grady went on to become a father and reared his daughter alone in London.

A private man who served as a soldier in the British army, he barely spoke about his upbringing.

His daughter Helen never knew while he was alive that he had been trying to trace his mother.

He died in May 2023 from cancer.

John O’Grady pictured with his daughter Helen, who is continuing the search for his birth mother since John died in May.

Helen O’Grady is now trying to find her grandmother’s grave, so that she can scatter some of John’s ashes there and help him to “rest in peace”.

After her father’s death, Helen found letters a UK probation officer had written on his behalf to Tusla.

I had no idea he had been trying to find his mother.

“He had told me bits and pieces growing up, but I didn’t know everything and neither did he.

“It was only after his death we saw that correspondence to Ireland, and I realised he was looking for her.”

Ms O’Grady has no clear timeline for her father’s childhood life in care “due to a lack of transparency in his records”.

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“I understand thousands of adoptees and children in care, who are now adults are going through the same thing” she said.

“It is a minefield trying to put the jigsaw together. Everywhere you go it is red tape. My father was never adopted, but he went through several residential homes and those records are hard to get hold of.

“We are trying to get everything from Tusla (the Child and Family Agency), but it is a battle, as people in our position know. I can’t be certain of a lot of dates, but I feel my father came to the UK when he was very young, maybe right after he was able to leave care.” 

Family tree

The family learned that Bridget O’Grady’s parents were from Tipperary and moved to Kilkenny, where she was born. Bridget was one of five children born in 1921 in Pennyfeather Lane, Co Kilkenny.

Her mother was Annie O’Leary, and her father was a British army soldier, called John Grady, both from Co Tipperary.

Bridget’s mother died in Kilkenny in 1928, and she and her sister lived for a time with their maternal aunts Bridget Stokes and Mary ‘Molly’ O’Leary in a pub and shop in Henry Street (now O’Brien Street), Tipperary.

The children were found by gardaí playing alone on the streets with no shoes on and were charged in court with “wandering alone”.

They were placed at St Bernard’s Industrial Home in Dundrum, Co Tipperary.

Bridget was in a relationship with a man called John Erskine from Dublin when their baby John was born at Holles Street Hospital in Dublin on November 15, 1945.

In one record from the Children’s Section of the Dublin health board dated January 2, 1970, sent to the Probation Services in the UK and seen by the Irish Examiner, it said Bridget O’Grady “placed him (John) in the care of a Mrs Ellen O’Brien, 12 North Summer Street”.

It continues: “John was taken into care of this Authority in July 1947. His mother had gone to England and her address there was unknown. He was placed in St. Patrick’s Home in October 1947 having spent three months in hospital.”

The letter stated that social workers went back to Mrs O’Brien some years later, but she was no longer living there.

Parents' relationship

Bridget O’Grady described herself as being married on her son’s birth cert, which records Mr Erskine as his father.

John Erskine worked in Burtons clothes store in Dublin. However, Helen has learned that Bridget and John Erskine were not married, as he was already married with children.

“Maybe that is why she gave my father up, but there is no way she was married to him, it was just something she might have said to hide the fact she was a single mother which was not acceptable then.” Records also show baby John was baptised. However, that is where the story of his mother ends abruptly.

“My father never saw his mother again,” said Ms O’Grady.

“There are no records for Bridget anywhere. We believe she went to the UK, as that is what the records say, but we don’t know.

“We traced family through DNA tests online and some say they remember her visiting London with her sister Mary ‘Maureen’ and that she had blonde hair and light blue eyes. Her sister Maureen was a beautician.

“She could sing and play the piano. But we don’t know where she ended up, and most of all, where she was buried. We have no photo either. My father would have liked to have visited her grave.” 

John's childhood

Why John was eventually taken from Ellen O’Brien in Summer Street in Dublin is unknown. He was a little over two and a half years old and was treated in a hospital for three months.

“She must have neglected him, otherwise why was he in hospital for so long?” said Ms O’Grady.

“We have no information for why he was in hospital, what treatment he received, who cared for him, visited him, or bought him anything. We don’t even know what hospital he was in as a child.

“After leaving hospital the records show dad was transferred to four different State and religious homes, that we know of.” John O’Grady was placed in St Patrick’s home on the Navan Road in Dublin, St Philomena’s Home in Stillorgan, Carriglea Park School in Dun Laoghaire, and St Joseph’s Industrial school in Tralee Co Kerry.

“My father suffered immensely in the hands of the nuns and the priests who ran those places,” said Ms O’Grady.

“He recalled being beaten, mostly every day, he was beaten if he couldn’t speak, read, or write, and if he was scared or showed any emotion to being scared, he would get beaten for that too.

“He was sexually assaulted, and treated with no respect or empathy, was made to work hard, and never had a childhood, he was made to do anything he was told, and to attend church and be a Christian.

“He was passed from place to place, children’s home to children home, whenever he would get sick, he would be sent to a hospital where they would leave kids alone for weeks on end and not even get a visit from anyone”.

She remembers her father describing to her that one brother who worked in the homes, “took him under his wing and looked after him”.

“My father knew no different,” said Ms O’Grady.

What the brother actually did, was made my father believe, what the brother was doing to him was a kind act, and not demoralising him and degrading him in every way possible.” 

John never spoke about what happened to him for over 70 years. He said he was allowed leave the home at 16, he was sent to live with a family on a farm where he was treated like an animal and was made to sleep in the farm shed with the pigs.

“He was never shown any dignity, they made him work hard day and night, they would make him look after four young toddlers when he barely knew how to look after himself.”

John left Ireland some time in the 1960s and went to London, where he joined the British army, and spent time in Cyprus before moving back to London.

He never returned to Ireland.

Helen said her father kept a lot to himself and she was saddened to discover he was trying to find his mother.

“He died before we ever found out what happened to his mother,” said Helen. 

We would have loved to have traced her. But the trail just runs cold.

“We hope that someone might remember her, or know something about her, it was my father’s wish obviously to try and find her.

“Maybe she went on to have another family and more children, I’d love to know if I have any aunts or uncles on my dad’s side that I have yet to meet.

“I am trying to finish that final but most important piece for my dad, and for him because I received his ashes, and I would like him to finally have some peace.”