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

The infant Helen OâGrady with her dad, John OâGrady. 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 OâGrady was told by the nuns that his mother Bridget left him on a doorstep of St Patrickâs 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 OâGrady 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.

Helen OâGrady is now trying to find her grandmotherâs grave, so that she can scatter some of Johnâs ashes there and help him to ârest in peaceâ.
After her fatherâs death, Helen found letters a UK probation officer had written on his behalf to Tusla.
âHe had told me bits and pieces growing up, but I didnât know everything and neither did he.
âIt was only after his death we saw that correspondence to Ireland, and I realised he was looking for her.â
Ms OâGrady has no clear timeline for her fatherâs childhood life in care âdue to a lack of transparency in his recordsâ.
âI understand thousands of adoptees and children in care, who are now adults are going through the same thingâ she said.
âIt 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.
âWe are trying to get everything from Tusla (the Child and Family Agency), but it is a battle, as people in our position know. I canât 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.âÂ
The family learned that Bridget OâGradyâs 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 OâLeary, and her father was a British army soldier, called John Grady, both from Co Tipperary.
Bridgetâs mother died in Kilkenny in 1928, and she and her sister lived for a time with their maternal aunts Bridget Stokes and Mary âMollyâ OâLeary in a pub and shop in Henry Street (now OâBrien Street), Tipperary.
The children were found by gardaĂ playing alone on the streets with no shoes on and were charged in court with âwandering aloneâ.
They were placed at St Bernardâs 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 Childrenâs Section of the Dublin health board dated January 2, 1970, sent to the Probation Services in the UK and seen by the
, it said Bridget OâGrady âplaced him (John) in the care of a Mrs Ellen OâBrien, 12 North Summer Streetâ.It continues: âJohn 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. Patrickâs Home in October 1947 having spent three months in hospital.â
The letter stated that social workers went back to Mrs OâBrien some years later, but she was no longer living there.
Bridget OâGrady described herself as being married on her sonâs 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.
âMaybe 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.â Records also show baby John was baptised. However, that is where the story of his mother ends abruptly.
âMy father never saw his mother again,â said Ms OâGrady.
âThere are no records for Bridget anywhere. We believe she went to the UK, as that is what the records say, but we donât know.
âWe traced family through DNA tests online and some say they remember her visiting London with her sister Mary âMaureenâ and that she had blonde hair and light blue eyes. Her sister Maureen was a beautician.
âShe could sing and play the piano. But we donât 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.âÂ
Why John was eventually taken from Ellen OâBrien 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.
âShe must have neglected him, otherwise why was he in hospital for so long?â said Ms OâGrady.
âWe have no information for why he was in hospital, what treatment he received, who cared for him, visited him, or bought him anything. We donât even know what hospital he was in as a child.
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âAfter leaving hospital the records show dad was transferred to four different State and religious homes, that we know of.â John OâGrady was placed in St Patrickâs home on the Navan Road in Dublin, St Philomenaâs Home in Stillorgan, Carriglea Park School in Dun Laoghaire, and St Josephâs Industrial school in Tralee Co Kerry.
âMy father suffered immensely in the hands of the nuns and the priests who ran those places,â said Ms OâGrady.
âHe recalled being beaten, mostly every day, he was beaten if he couldnât speak, read, or write, and if he was scared or showed any emotion to being scared, he would get beaten for that too.
âHe 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.
âHe was passed from place to place, childrenâs 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 anyoneâ.
She remembers her father describing to her that one brother who worked in the homes, âtook him under his wing and looked after himâ.
âMy father knew no different,â said Ms OâGrady.
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.
âHe 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.â
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.
âHe died before we ever found out what happened to his mother,â said Helen.Â
âWe hope that someone might remember her, or know something about her, it was my fatherâs wish obviously to try and find her.
âMaybe she went on to have another family and more children, Iâd love to know if I have any aunts or uncles on my dadâs side that I have yet to meet.
âI 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.â