Long-lost siblings reunited against the odds

IRELAND’S history harbours some dark and disturbing hollows, but few are as hideous as the dozens of mother-and-baby homes that were scattered across the country through most of the 20th century.

These were places that specialised in severing the deepest human bond, separating mother and child.

Most women and girls who arrived at these institutions did so under duress, usually because they had fallen pregnant out of wedlock; something that, in the perversely puritanical climate that prevailed at the time, was seen as a sin of exceeding severity.

Usually accompanied by a family member, a young woman would be walked through the doors with her child, and escorted back out without them.

It is thought that in the North alone around 10,500 mothers were brought to mother-and-baby homes between 1922 and 1990.

However, while most of the stories behind these statistics likely have no silver lining, no redeeming ribbon, the one we are telling today does.

This is the unlikely tale of how two long-lost siblings managed against all odds to find each other from across the Atlantic and trace their shared roots back to Omagh.

Recently, their life-changing reunion culminated at a bridge above the Strule River, where the pair were finally able to return their mother to her hometown, casting her ashes into the Omagh air, and tossing her favourite flowers into the running water below.

In 1962, a 17-year-old Omagh girl, Moya Beckett, and her newborn son arrived in Marianvale Mother and Baby Home, Newry.

Before long, Moya’s baby boy, Billy, was taken from her and sent to Nazareth House in Fahan, Co Donegal.

A short time after being discharged from Marianvale, Moya left her James Street home and emigrated to Canada, thousands of miles away from the child she had carried for nine months. The two would never see each other again.

On the far side of the ocean, though, Moya started a second life; giving birth to two more children, Shannon and David.

However, despite the happiness her new family brought her, she could never escape the shadow of her past, keeping her first child a shamefully-held secret from her second two for most of her life.

Then, one day, deep into the later stages of dementia, Moya turned to her daughter, Shannon, and told her about the baby boy that had been stolen from her.

“That was what really ignited Shannon’s interest in finding out more about her family history,” said Billy Scampton, speaking with the Ulster Herald this week.

“If it weren’t for that moment, that one slip, I would probably never have been reunited with my long-lost sister,” he said.

After being taken to Nazareth House, Billy was adopted by a family in Derry’s Creggan estate.

“Ben and Vera Scampton raised me as their own, in a house warm with love and care.

“The same goes for my wee sister, Marie. I am eternally grateful for the love they showed me, and it was partly out of respect for them that I never tried to find out about my birth parents while they were alive, despite the fact I had their blessing to do so.”

However, when the Scamptons passed away, Billy began to dig into his recent ancestry.

“An adopted child will always have a desire to know about their birth parents. It is a very deep human yearning,” explained Billy. “I looked exhaustively for leads, but I never got too far.”

An unlikely discovery

With each passing month, Billy was aware that his chances of finding his mother and her family were diminishing exponentially.

“It is the nature of things that people pass away and your chances of connecting become slimmer and slimmer,” he told us.

Battling a sense of shrinking hope, Billy was shocked when he received a message from a friend saying that he had come across a post that Billy might be interested in taking a look at.

“My good friend, Terry Doran, a fellow adoptee from Nazareth House, who was also brought up in the same flats as me, sent me a link to a post which a Canadian woman called Shannon Leet had managed to get shared on some local Facebook pages.

“The post said that she wanted to find out about relatives – living or dead – from Ireland,” said Billy.

The appeal included Billy’s mother’s surname, the names of her parents (Matt and Elizabeth) and other relatives, the fact the family owned a lodging house at Number Two James Street and a picture of a shop the family ran on Bridge Street.

“I ended up getting in touch with a woman who had went to school with my mother, and a while later I got a response to a message I had sent to Shannon.

“It was one of the most peculiar, exciting moments of my life.”

“I sent Shannon a message on Saturday, July 1, and she came back the following evening and said she understood we had a common connection. I said, ‘Yes, indeed we do’. I asked what she knew about her mother’s time in Ireland, and she replied, ‘A short time before she died, she told me she had given birth to a baby boy and had been forced to give him up for adoption’. I wrote back and said, ‘I am your mammy’s wee boy… and the rest is history’.

“She came back and said, ‘Oh My God., I am absolutely speechless, thank you so much’.”

A few minutes later, the brother and sister were on their first video call, peering into each other’s uncannily alike faces.

“Then she told me that I had a brother as well, David! Shannon and I spoke for about 40 minutes that Sunday, the same the following, then on the third we must have chatted for about six and a half hours. I polished off a box of Coors Light, and we had the most amazing conversation.

“She is incredibly intelligent, so accepting and open, and a wonderful conversationalist.”

An emotional reunion

Billy said that finding out he had a sister was not an uncomplicatedly happy discovery, coming as it did alongside news that his mother had passed away following a long struggle with dementia.

“It was hard to hear that my mother was gone. You spend so long looking and helplessly hoping, and then you find out what you quietly dreaded all along; you’ll never meet her. At the same time, though, to find out you have a set of siblings connecting you to that person you never got to meet is a beautiful thing.

“It has opened a new chapter for me,” reflected Billy.

One of the most poignant passages of this new part of Billy’s life unfolded over the last few weeks, when his sister, her husband, and some friends came from Canada to stay with him in his Derry home, which included a poignant trip to Omagh, where they visited extended family and spread their mother’s ashes, a bitter-sweet ceremony that Billy said felt like a homecoming of a kind.

“It was just the most amazing, emotional reunion at Dublin Airport. There were tears of joy everywhere.”

The following week, the Canadians came to stay with Billy, during which time the siblings took a ‘pilgrimage’ to Omagh.

“Shannon had presented me with a delicately-engraved box containing my mother’s ashes. She said, ‘We are bringing Mum home’.

“We visited Omagh, and took some of the ashes with us, as well as bunches of carnations, which Shannon said were my mother’s favourite flowers, plus three red roses; one for me, one for Shannon and one for David.

“We spread the ashes over the Strule River, not far from where my mother went to school and near the bus depot where her father would have worked. Once we had the ashes sprinkled, we threw the flowers into the water. As we crossed the bridge to look down from the other side, we saw that the roses had come together, crossing over one another, flowing closely behind the carnations; just like my mother’s children, together at last.”

Goodbye for now

Before leaving Omagh, the siblings returned to Number Two James Street, where their mother grew up, paying their respects at the doorway.

After that, they visited their mum’s only surviving sister, Maureen McFettridge.

“We spent one of the best days of my life with our auntie and her children, Stephen, Richard, Gregory and Peter, and all their wives.

“They could not have been more welcoming; we were really made to feel like family. I cannot explain what that was like; so special. I cannot wait to go back and see them again.”

In a final message to other adoptees, Billy had this to say: “Never give up, keep on searching. A year ago I thought that I had reached the end. I had resigned myself to thinking that all hope was lost and some things would remain a mystery for ever. Now look at me. I have a sister and brother I never knew existed, as well as an auntie and cousins I would never have met. I have a lot to thank Terry Doran for, that much is for certain.”