Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace review – powerful investigation of personal pain behind mother and baby homes. The injustices of these institutions – virtual prisons for so-called “fallen” women and clearing houses for their babies before adoption abroad – were unflinchingly detailed by Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters from 2002 .
Thomas is two years older than Martina and was left outside London at a train station in Reading in England. Martina’s DNA sample confirmed the two as cousins – Martina’s father, Joseph, and Thomas’s mother, Peggy, were siblings. The experts continue to dig. Thomas receives the sad news that his mother went to Australia, where she died – but that his father lived out his life in Carrick-on-Shannon in Co Leitrim, where he was married with a family. His children had no idea they had a half-sibling in England When they meet, they are dumbstruck when their dad’s lookalike walks into the room. Thomas is astonished, too, to discover an instant extended family. Growing up, he was told he had “Irish eyes”.