But then a colleague said to me: ‘I’m OK, my mother’s Irish, I’ve got an Irish passport.’” Suddenly, my father thought: “This could be my chance. I have to find out.”The number of British citizens applying for Irish passports increased by 22% last year. Almost 100,000 applications were received, as people dug up neglected Irish roots in the hope of retaining EU citizenship. In early 2017, my father contacted an agency that specialises in investigating adoptions and the hunt for our Irish heritage began. One estimate places the number of babies born to unmarried Irish women during the 50s at about 1,900 a year.

Source: The Guardian May 25, 2019 04:52 UTC