[slow piano music playing] [Davina McCall] For more than a decade, we've been helping people reunite with missing family.

Hello, sis.

Let's have a clutch.

-[Gavin] I love you, man.

-So good to meet you.

-You alright?

-It's been so long.

Sorry.

I'm your older brother.

[laughs] -[all] Cheers!

-[Tanya] To family.

To family.

[Nicky Campbell]But this time, we face a huge obstacle-- an illegal practice in Ireland that went on for almost a century.

[Davina] For many adopted people, a birth certificate is a vital record of their identity.

So, what if you discovered that the information on it wasn't true?

[sweeping music] In this special episode of Long Lost Family, we follow the stories of two men, both of them born in Ireland to unmarried mothers, at a time when having children outside of marriage was seen as sinful, and the Catholic Church went to great lengths to cover it up.

The adoptive parents were named falsely on the birth certificate, and it was a criminal offense.

[Bernard McGrath] "Daniel McGrath was not my birth father.

Margaret was not my birth mother.

So, this is all wrong."

We take on a decades-long struggle to findout who they are.

I've come up against barriers, lies, and deceit.

I want to find out who I am.

I want closure.

[gentle music playing] I really don't know who my birth parents are, because of the fictional information.

[Davina]Arthur Fitzharris first applied to Long Lost Familyin 2018.

My birth mother was not named on that birth certificate.

I want to find out-- Who am I?

You know, who are my parents?

Who were they?

I mean, I have a strong urge to get to the bottom of this now.

I just feel that you're my last hope.

[Davina]We knew that Arthur's search would be a difficult one.

[gentle piano music playing] [keyboard clacking] [general chatter, laughter] [Davina] Retired financial sales manager Arthur Fitzharris livesin the south of Ireland with his wife, Geraldine.

Who's first?

[Davina]They have a daughter, three sons, and five grandchildren.

[Arthur] My wife and my children are my life, you know.

And my kids are very supportive, and they're very loving.

After all these years, wouldn't it be great if you found out that you had aunts and uncles and cousins?

Yeah.

[Clodagh] Yeah, and might even look like Papa.

[laughter] [Clodagh] Just the boys, not the girls.

[laughter] [Davina]Arthur was adopted aged five, but has no idea about his life from birth until that point.

In 2001, he began the search for his birth parents by asking to see his adoption file.

He was told he had no right by law to see it, but he was allowed to have a summary.

[Geraldine] Another one there from the adoption board.

[Arthur] Yeah.

"You were born in a nursing home in Dublin in 1947.

Your birth was registered directly into the name of a couple with whom you were placed."

[Davina]Arthur discovered that, as a baby, he was first placed with foster parents on the Isle of Man.

[Arthur] So, the couple I was placed with were registered as being my parents, but they weren't my biological parents.

"The couple, on realizing that you had been thus registered, reported the matter to the police.

Birth registration was subsequently canceled.

Unfortunately, there is no information available on your birth mother or birth family."

I was dumbfounded.

[Davina]Arthur had discovered that he had started life with a completely false identity.

[Arthur] "Entry contained fictitious information as to parentage."

-That horrified me.

[laughs] -[Geraldine] Lies.

It told me absolutely nothing, you know, as to who I am.

We got none of the answers we wanted.

I was up against a brick wall.

[Davina] There's no indication why the foster parents notifiedthe police.

But when Arthur was five, he was removed from their care, left the Isle of Man, and returned to Ireland.

[Arthur]My earliest memory was coming back to Ireland.

I tried to put my hand out through the window of the plane to feel the clouds, you know, the fluffy clouds, [laughing] and then realizing I couldn't put my hand out through the window.

[slow piano music playing] [Davina]When he arrived back in Ireland, Arthur was left at an orphanage known as Temple Hill.

Run by nuns, it was part of a network of Catholic institutions which processed children of unmarried mothers.

Between 1922 and 1998, nearly 60,000 children passed through places like this.

[Arthur] To my mind, it was like a factory.

What happened was that, in those days, the people used to come on a Sunday to Temple Hill, and there would be boys in the hallway.

[Davina]On Sundays, prospective parents could visit the orphanage and meet the children.

And I was in the background and kind of was peeping over, not knowing what was going on.

And, actually, my mother told me later that she pointed to that boy at the back, and then I was adopted.

[Davina]After a few months in the orphanage, Arthur had been selected for adoption by Beatrice and Robert Fitzharris.

I always knew I was adopted.

I had a great childhood.

I really did.

My parents were fantastic.

I never wanted for anything.

I was so happy and contented with them, that the subject of my own adoption never arose, you know?

As far as I was concerned, they were my parents.

I never asked them, and I think, in those days, it probably wasn't something that you would bring up.

[Davina] When Arthur started looking for the truth of his identity years later, he was hoping that the orphanage would have records of his birth parents.

[Arthur]They gave me very, very little answers.

I arrived in May 1952.

I attended the local school, and I left that school in September 1953.

I would have thought that they would have had a lotmore information.

It became very, very frustrating.

I just felt that children weren't...

Sorry.

Just upset.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

Um...

I just felt that, uh, we weren't... that children weren't treated the way they should have been treated.

No matter what road I took, it always ended in a cul-de-sac.

[slow piano music playing] [general chatter, phones ringing] Arthur's search for his birth parents seems exceptionally frustrating, but, in fact, he's one of hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Ireland whose birth certificates were registered in their adoptive parents' names.

[string music playing] [Nicky] In our second story, we follow another man born in Ireland in 1953, six years after Arthur Fitzharris, and, like Arthur, to an unmarried mother.

Come on, Maxie.

[Nicky] 70-year-old retired telecoms worker Bernard McGrath now lives in England, near Hereford, with his second wife,Sally.

Come on.

[Nicky] He grew up in the suburbs of North Dublin as an only child, with his parents, Dan and Margaret McGrath.

They weren't particularly huggy-feely people.

It was... Oh, it's hard to-- It's hard to describe, really.

My dad, he taught me how to ride a bike when I was a kid.

When I was growing up, I'd like to say it was nice, but my mother, she was... You'd get a hiding every day for nothing.

I didn't have a clue that I was adopted.

Never heard it mentioned.

Nothing.

[Nicky] At the age of 40, Bernard heard a distressing rumor about his birth.

I went down and asked my mother.

I told her, "I've heard I was adopted.

Is it true?"

And the look of shock on her face was unbelievable.

But she said, "Well, yeah.

Where did you hear that from?"

And I said, "Doesn't matter.

I just wanted to confirm it 100%."

[Nicky]Bernard learned that he'd been collected as a baby from the nursery at Temple Hill, the Catholic orphanage where five-year-old Arthur was housed at around the same time.

All she would say was that they couldn't have children.

She had an aunt who was a mother superior, who arranged the whole thing.

So, she went over, and she was brought into a room with three cots in it, and she was saying, which one would you like?

My adoptive mother didn't have any information about my birth parents at all.

She was never told anything.

My world just imploded.

All of a sudden, your whole life just changes.

You think, "Who am I?

I was this person, but now, I'm somebody totally different."

It's just devastating.

[Nicky]And there was another revelation to come, when Bernard ordered his birth certificate so he could find out the names of his birth parents.

[Bernard] I was shell-shocked when I got this.

I said to the girl who gave it to me, I said, "This is a false document."

I said, "The information on it is incorrect."

And she said, "Well, no, that's what's in the record."

And I said, "Well, I've just found out I was adopted.

Daniel McGrath was not my birth father.

Margaret was not my birth mother.

So, this is all wrong."

I was hoping they would go back and find my proper birth certificate with a different name on it.

But it didn't happen.

That was the only registration that was made for me.

[Sally] It took over his life for 30 years.

And if you look at the birth certificate, it says, "To alter this document is a serious offense."

Was it not a serious offense to write it in the first place?

Why have I got this piece of paper that's a lie and not the real thing, you know, the real information?

Where are my birth parents?

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

[big band music playing] [Nicky]When Bernard McGrath discovered, aged 40, that he'd been adopted, it was only the start of a long struggle to findout who he really was.

♪ [Stephen Lang] It's so good to be home ♪ [Nicky]Bernard's birth had been registered illegally in the names of his adoptive parents, leaving him with an entirely false identity.

[Bernard] What happened there?

What were the circumstances of me coming into existence?

I wanted to know why I was never told.

Why was it kept from me?

It was a big, dark secret.

[menacing music playing] [Nicky]That secret also haunted our other searcher, Arthur Fitzharris, who was adopted from the sameinstitution.

He was in his mid-fifties when he learned his birth had been registered illegally.

I was upset, you know, yes, that... my past history, there was just a lot of lies.

[Nicky]Arthur and Bernard are part of a much bigger story.

The full truth about the Irish babies born to unmarried mothers who were illegally registered at birth is only just emerging.

Having found my own birth mother, who was also an unmarried Irish woman, I can relate to both Bernard and Arthur's stories.

But unlike them, my birth mother's name was on my birth certificate, as it should have been.

So, what was it about Ireland that allowed birth certificates to be registered illegally?

I'm meeting one of the leading experts in Irish adoption law.

-Hi, Conor.

-Hi, Nicky.

Good to meet you.

[Nicky] You too.

Um, so, can you explain, Conor, what is an illegal birth registration?

So, an illegal birth registration is where a child is placed with parents other than its own parents, to be raised by them as adoptive parents, but no formal adoption order took place.

Instead, what happened was that the adoptive parents were named falsely and illegally on the birth certificate and the Register of Births as the natural parents of the child, as if the child had been born to them.

And it was a criminal offense to enter false information into the Register of Births.

[Nicky] When did it become a criminal offense?

-1874.

-1874?

So, all material times, it was a criminal offense to do this.

But yet this practice was relatively widespread during the '50s, '60s, '70s in Ireland.

[Davina] In 20th-century Ireland, women who became pregnant out of wedlock were often forced to give birth in now-infamous mother and baby homes.

It's not known how many were pressured into giving up their babies for adoption, but nearly 60,000 children were born in institutions like these.

The practice of falsely recording the identity of illegitimate children was shrouded in secrecy.

Only now is the full scale of it coming to light.

What I don't understand is, given that this had been the law since 1874, why the government didn't intervene.

Yeah, it's a very interesting question.

The absence of state action is one of the sore points, I guess, in all of this.

What is heartbreaking is that, for a lot of people, this can just be an absolute dead end for anyone who's seeking their identity.

[Conor] Absolutely.

And the 150 or so cases that have been identified so far is certainly not the totality, but nobody can say with any accuracy how many more of these cases there are.

It could be dozens, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands.

-Scary, isn't it?

-It is scary.

[Davina]To learn his true identity, Bernard McGrath approached the Irish Adoption Authority but was redirected to St. Patrick's Guild, the agency run by the Sisters of Charity, the order of nuns who'd arranged his adoption.

[Bernard] I came here, I knocked on the door, and a nun came out and said, "Can I help you?"

I just said, "I've just found out I was adopted."

They said they would be able to check and see if they had a record of who my birth mother was.

[Davina]At first, the nuns refused to give Bernard any information.

But when he said that his aunt had been a mother superior, they relented and told him his birth mother's name: Teresa Scully.

[Bernard]They wouldn't give me the address.

They said, "You can write her a letter," explain who I was, bring it here, and they would forward it on, which I did.

I learned there that there was a lot of people knocking on nuns' doors, but they were just being turned away.

Straight away, they were told, "No, go away.

You're not going to find anything."

So, I considered myself very lucky that I did get information, and I did get contact.

[Nicky]In Ireland, over 180 institutions dealt with placing children.

It's not known exactly how many babies were illegally registered, but it could be as many as 20,000.

In the last five years, 151 cases have been proven, including Bernard's, and these are thought to be justthe tip of the iceberg.

It's possible thousands of people had false identities imposed upon them.

[Davina]I can't imagine how it must feel to discover that your birth record is false.

And it's such a breakthrough for Bernard to have got hold of his birth mother's name.

I really want to find out what happened next, and if he ever managed to meet her.

-Hi, Bernard.

-Hi, Davina.

How are you?

Yeah, really good.

It's lovely to meet you.

-Come in.

Come in.

-[Davina] Thanks.

Thank you so much, Bernard, for talking to me.

I mean, I've got so much I want to ask you, but I think, first of all, what was it like when St. Patrick's Guild actually finally did give you your birth mother's name?

-I suppose relief, in a way.

-Mm.

They said she was willing to make contact, so I wrote her a letter and explained who I was.

-Where was she?

-Philadelphia.

Wow, that's a long way away.

Yeah.

Well, this is the first letter I got off her.

This is October '94.

It says, "Dear Bernard, I am so very, very sorry for this long delay to your letter.

You have no idea what I felt when I looked at the pictures, especially of the ones of you as a little boy..." [Davina] Aww.

"...my baby that I never seen grow up through the years.

I was very sorry that I had to give you up, but I had no option.

I had to go away to a home run by nuns in Tipperary before you were born.

It was pretty tough there.

I only saw you three times, and then you were taken to the nursery at Temple Hill, Blackrock.

God bless you, and, remember, I think of you every day.

All my love, Teresa."

[Bernard] Mm.

Can you remember what it felt like reading that letter for the first time?

Very emotional.

It felt like...

But it was good.

It was good.

But then I started writing to her, and she'd write back.

Eventually, I got pissed off, and I said, "Look, I've booked a flight to Philadelphia.

If you want to meet me, you can."

I just hopped on a plane and went over, and we met.

So, did her family know?

She never told her husband, because he would never have accepted it.

[Davina] Mm.

Um, she had two daughters, and she told them.

And, tell me, what was that meeting like?

[laughs] Weird.

We were meeting in a shopping mall, and I was just looking around.

"Is that her?

Is that her?

No, no, no..." And you're ju... Every woman that goes by there of a certain age will... And then as soon as I saw her, I knew.

[Davina] You knew.

And as soon as she saw me, she knew.

And just...you know.

Did she cry?

We both did.

We both did, yeah.

Ah.

It was wonderful, so it was.

She was so pleased and so happy.

Really was, you know.

It's my mother.

[laughs] And have you got any pictures that you can show me?

[Bernard] This is a picture of my birth mother.

[Davina] Oh, wow!

And when was that from?

That would have been before I was born, in Dublin, in the... -Wow!

-...'50s.

[Davina] She looks amazing.

[Bernard] Yeah.

And have you got one of when you met?

-[Bernard] This one... -[gasps] ...I was in her daughter's house just after we met, the same day.

-I think you look alike.

-[Bernard] A little bit.

-What do you think?

-A little bit, yeah.

-[Davina] Same nose.

-Yeah.

You know, it was great to... find out about her.

I know exactly where she was brought up and everything, you know.

It wasn't actually very far from where I grew up.

I mean, these are all little tidbits of your life that you can piece together.

-[Bernard] Great.

Wonderful.

-Yeah.

-Wonderful.

-[Davina] Thank you.

[Davina]Having finally met his birth mother, Bernardreturned to Dublin.

He's come to the central bus station, where his mother worked, to put together what happened to her after he was born.

[Bernard] My birth mother, she got a job here in a newsagent.

I have a photograph of her in work in the bus station.

My birth mother had to pay for my upkeep.

I have copies of the receipts that she had to pay from St. Patrick's Guild.

And she had to pay 10 shillings every month, which is equivalent to 150 pound today, which didn't leave her with a lot back then.

They were just profiting on somebody's misery.

They were making money out of it.

I had been adopted, so there was no need for her to pay at that time.

[Davina]It's not known how much Catholic adoption agencies in Ireland earned from unmarried mothers and the placement of their children, but some estimates put it at hundreds of thousands of pounds.

[Bernard] I feel so sorry for what happened to her back then.

Girls, women then, had absolutely no support.

They were treated very, very badly.

It actually makes me feel angry that people can be treated like that.

It's not right today.

It wasn't right back then.

They got away with it.

Disgraceful.

[Davina]Bernard's mother sadly died in 2017.

But before she died, she told him the name of his birth father.

Bernard would face another uphill struggle to find him.

[Nicky]The exact number of people in Ireland illegally registered at birth with a false identity is unknown.

But Arthur Fitzharris is one of hundreds, if not thousands.

He spent nearly 20 years searching for his true identity before he came to Long Lost Family.

It's been a long road to try and get information as to who I was, you know, and I was just coming up against brick walls.

[Nicky]A specialist team has analyzed Arthur's DNA, and he's traveledfrom Ireland to find out more.

I'm feeling a bit nervous and excited.

It's been a long road.

I've come up against barriers, lies, and deceit for so many years.

I want to find out who I am.

I want closure.

[Nicky]The secrecy surrounding Arthur's birth and identity make this search exceptionally challenging for our team.

He's meeting with our lead social worker, Ariel Bruce.

-[Arthur] Hello.

-Arthur.

Very pleased to meet you.

I'm pleased to meet you too.

Will you come through?

[Arthur] Yeah, thanks very much.

[Ariel] So, Arthur, I know that we've worked for a long time on your search, and, actually, every single person on the team that does DNA work, everyone has worked on your case.

I want to tell you a bit about what the DNA has told us.

[Arthur] Yes.

Okay.

We now have a name for your mother's side of the family, but there's lots of sisters in that family group.

Right.

[Ariel] What we have here is the members of that family.

[Nicky] Long Lost Family cannot reveal the full names on screen, as the information around cases like this, even 70 years on, is still so sensitive.

But for the very first time in his life, Arthur is seeing the full names and surnames of his birth mother's family.

So, your birth mother has to have been one of these ladies.

[Arthur] Right.

[Ariel] But it's been very difficult trying to find out which one your parent could be.

Mm.

Interesting.

Now on your birth father's side, the combination of DNA and other enquiries tells us that this family is your birth father's side.

Okay.

And we know that this family comes from Waterford, so you're a Waterford boy.

[both laugh] Okay.

What we ended up knowing is that your birth father has to be one of these three men.

Alright.

[Ariel] John is the only one in Waterford at the right time.

I would bet that John is your birth father.

Okay.

Right.

Very interesting.

Unfortunately, we really quite struggled to make contact with possible family.

We think we found one of them.

I wrote but never got a reply.

As you know, these things are still quite hidden in families.

Very much so, unfortunately.

Sometimes when-- the person themselves, -you make an approach... -Yes.

...hopefully family members would be agreeable.

I have a lot to digest, a lot to think about, you know, a lot to go through.

And, of course, I'm very happy to help support you in approaches that you might choose to make.

To be honest with you, when I came, you know, I was... Well, you know, obviously, I want closure, you know.

I want closure for-- not alone just myself, but for my family.

So, no, I'm-- you know, found out things today that I didn't know before.

I have a lot to work on, I have.

[general chatter] It's unusual for Long Lost Family, but given the huge sensitivities of Arthur's search, our lead social worker, Ariel, thought that a personal approach would be most effective.

So, with our team on hand, Arthur and his daughter, Clodagh, will take the search forward.

[Arthur]It was a shock to get all this information.

And all I wanted to do was to try and see if I could make contact on both sides of the family.

[Clodagh]I don't think any of us expected what she was goingto tell him.

And, you know, for 75 years, not knowing who you were, where you came from, and to finally have names on a piece of paper to give him an identity was really so important for him.

-Good job.

-Yeah.

That's great.

-Would you like some chicken?

-Please.

It was mind-blowing, to be quite honest with you.

-Alright?

-Mm, very nice.

[Arthur]Fortunately, I have a loving daughter.

She did some further investigation, detective work.

Mum will have you in the kitchen now, cooking all the time.

[laughs] We always believed that there was family out there that we would find.

Ariel was the one who gave us the tools that we needed.

All we needed was names.

And as soon as they came back from London, I was straight on it.

A lot of people I find through Facebook, Google.

[Nicky] Clodagh has reached out to the names that Ariel gave Arthur, including any descendants, and is waiting for them to hopefully get in contact.

For Bernard, the next step in finding his identity also lay in what any descendants could tell him directly.

When he met his birth mother in Philadelphia in the '90s, she revealed his father's name.

[Bernard] As soon as she saw me in the flesh, she said, "Yeah, Patrick Bowden's your dad.

That's him, definitely," you know.

She told me he was probably in England.

I was living in Dublin at the time.

Back in the '90s, there was no way to face somebody, unless you got a private detective, which there was no way I could afford somebody for-- to go looking for a couple of weeks.

[Nicky]Bernard put his search for his birth father on hold until years later, when DNA testing allowed him to takeit up again.

[Bernard]I went on to a genealogy site, and I did the DNA test.

It took six weeks then for that to come back.

I was hoping to find Patrick Bowden, who I presumed would have died.

But I wondered, did he get married?

Did he have children?

Have I got some siblings out there somewhere?

But I couldn't get anywhere, really.

It didn't show up any close relative.

[Nicky]Bernard's breakthrough came in 2022.

Following years of activism by adopted people, they were finally allowed full access to their adoption files.

And there was also help for those whose births had been registered illegally.

Bernard was put in touch with a genetic genealogist.

He put me on the right track, and that's how I found my birth father.

He found it in a very short time.

[Davina] Bernard found out that Patrick Bowden had died in 1972 but had gone on to marry and had three daughters and three sons.

[lighthearted piano music playing] I'm meeting one of Patrick Bowden's children, his eldest daughter and Bernard's half-sister, Mandy, to find out what happened when Bernard got in touch with her.

-[Davina] Hi, Mandy.

-Hi, Davina.

-[Davina] How are you doing?

-Alright, thank you.

-Lovely to meet you.

-And you too.

And, oh... What an amazing story, discovering a brother.

How did-- how did Bernard get in touch with you?

He sent me an email asking what I could tell him about Patrick Bowden, my father.

I asked him why he wanted to know, and Bernard said, "I think he might be my father too", and... Yeah.

[laughs] [Davina] And then what did you do?

Well, then, obviously, surprised, definitely surprised, but I went back to Bernard and said, "Right, what's your date of birth, and have you got a photograph?"

So, he came back and told me, and he was actually born about three years before I was.

And he sent me a picture of himself and some pictures of him when he was younger.

And as soon as I saw all the pictures, it was my brothers.

So, I thought, "There's no question about this, he's definitely a Bowden."

And when the DNA test came back, it confirmed that Bernard was my half-brother.

-Were you excited?

-I was excited, because I'm gradually getting to know him and speaking to him over the phone, and he was telling me little bits about his mom, and I said, "What was your mom's name?"

So, he said, "Teresa, Teresa Scully."

And I said, "My dad, when he was young, used to do a bit of ballroom dancing, and his dancing partner was called Terry Scully."

Wow.

So they obviously had some sort of relationship.

So... Tell me about your dad.

My dad, he was definitely a family man.

He'd had a couple of heart attacks, and a lot of his time was spent looking after the rest of us, because my mom worked, and he was at home.

Yeah, so... You know, we grew up in Bradford, hence no Irish accent.

[laughs] [Davina] Mm.

And he was a good dad?

[Mandy] He was a good dad.

Oh, definitely, he was a good dad.

We all loved him, obviously.

But I was only 17 when he died.

-Oh, I'm sorry.

-Yeah.

That is probably one of the last pictures taken of my dad.

[Davina] That's crazy.

I mean, that is Bernard.

Do you think he knew about Bernard?

No.

No, I don't think he knew for a minute, because if he knew, my mom would have known, and my mom couldn't keep a secret to save her life.

[laughs] [Davina] But it's worked out rather beautifully in the end.

[Mandy] Yeah, absolutely.

We all met up last September, except for my sister, who lives in Australia.

And I have a photograph of me and Bernice when we met up.

And I looked and I thought, "Gosh, it's me without hair."

[Mandy laughs] And I think my brothers and sisters realized that Dad would have wanted us to welcome him.

And he's so like my dad as well, in some of his mannerisms.

[Davina] So, in a way, it's like you are making sure -that your dad's wishes... -Yes.

-...had he known about him... -Yeah.

-...have been respected.

-I'm sure, you know.

And we're still gradually getting to know each other.

I'm absolutely sure we will be really close.

Yeah.

Arthur and Bernard both began their searches with the same desperate need-- to find out where they came from.

Bernard, Mandy, and their brothers are planning on meeting up again soon.

And in the meantime, Arthur is getting closer than ever to an answer.

It's very important for me to know who I am, and it's very important for my children as well.

We are now very close with the search, very close.

[Davina]For almost a century, until at least the 1970s, a mass cover-up in Ireland has robbed children of their true identity.

Many still have no idea who their parents were.

But for Bernard McGrath, the search is over.

He has found his paternal half-siblings.

Meeting them still feels very special.

[Mandy] Coming through, coming through... Hello, stranger.

[both laugh] -[Mandy] How are you?

-Great.

Yeah?

Good, good.

Good.

-[brother] Bernie!

-[Mandy laughs] How are you, big brother?

[Bernard laughs] To see them all again, it's fabulous.

I love when we get together.

This is only the third time.

You see, they're all accepting me into the family.

-Come and have a pint.

-What do you want to drink?

Come and have a beer.

It's your round.

[all laugh] It's been really nice meeting up with Bernard again, being able to catch up face to face, and just talking about our families and realizing that whilst we grew up so far apart, that, actually, a lot of what we've experienced was similar.

-You're fully on board now?

-[brother] Yeah.

[all laugh] If Bernard had had the opportunity to meet and be with Dad, he would have always been one of us, let me put it that way.

So, yeah, Dad would have been proud of the fact that we'vecome together.

[Bernard]I'd love to have met my dad.

But they've told me loads about him, and I just love them all for the way they treat me, and it's been a long journey.

It's taken a long time to get here, but it's probably the best thing that's ever happened in my life.

-To the family.

-[all] To the family!

Let the party start now.

[laughs] And never end.

[all laugh] [Nicky] Bernard's search for his identity is complete... but Arthur is still looking for answers.

DNA results identified the names of both of Arthur's parents' families.

-[Arthur] Hi, Clo.

-[Clodagh] Hi, Dad.

You all set?

Ready to go?

[Nicky]Arthur and his daughter, Clodagh, have reached out to potential family members and have asked them to take DNA tests.

-Bye!

-Bye!

While they wait, they've discovered where John, the man we believe to be Arthur's birth father, is buried.

I'm glad you're doing this.

[Arthur] Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's important for anybody to be able to visit your father's grave.

Here we are.

[Arthur]Now I know that I can go down and have a quiet moment with him.

[gentle harp music playing] [Clodagh] You okay?

That meant the world to me, you know, that I'm getting closure on who I am.

[intriguing piano music playing] [Davina] There's been an extremely hopeful development.

-[Geraldine] We all set?

-All set.

[Davina]Arthur and his wife, Geraldine, have come to Cork.

Oh, thanks.

[Davina]Some cousins on his maternal side have agreed to meet him and share information about the woman who they believe was most likely to be his late mother.

[Arthur] I'm going to meet cousins that I didn't know I had, and it's going to be a momentous day for me to meet them, speak to them, find out all about my mother.

[Davina]His daughter, Clodagh, and his three sons have also come to meet the new cousins.

The cousins do not wish to be filmed, so Arthur will meet them without the cameras present.

[Arthur]I never thought this day would come.

I hope that they accept me for who I am.

[upbeat music playing] I've had...

I can't describe how excited I was.

Sorry.

It was amazing.

Absolutely amazing altogether.

[Davina]Even though it's not 100% confirmed, Arthur's cousins are very confident they know which sister was his mother.

As soon as I walked in the room, you know, they said to me, you know, "You are who you are."

They brought a lot of photos today, and we were able to kind of look at all the sisters together, and there was one that definitely stood out who my dad was the absolute image of.

I mean, it's just-- it's so heartening, you know, to have that information, you know, that I know from this day onwards, you know, who my mother was.

[Clodagh]They gave him my grandmother's earrings from her wedding.

Something from her, something that we've never had anything from her.

So, now, we have a piece of her.

[Arthur's son] Cheers!

-[all] Cheers!

-[Arthur] Cheers!

-[Geraldine] A great day.

-A super day.

More cousins will come out of the woodwork in time, you know.

So, it was absolutely-- it was a momentous day as far as I'm concerned, and it exceeded all expectations.

Yeah.

[all laughing] [end music playing]