This flat is completely accessible for my wheelchair.

It’s part of a block of six apartments, and I’m on the ground floor. There’s quite a big hall –  that’s really what I was looking for when I moved in.

I have lived here since 2016. 

I have two bedrooms and a garden out the back. The flats upstairs have balconies but the lady across the way and myself each have a garden.  I got it paved over because the wheelchair wouldn’t go on the grass.

When I moved in the bathroom had a big bath with a shower in it, but that was no good for me, so I got it taken out and put in a wet room.

I own this property.

In 2014, I took part in the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) enquiry. As adults, we were compensated for what we endured as children.

I took a separate case against the Sisters of Nazareth and together with the money from the enquiry, and selling my little flat, I was able to buy this apartment.

My previous flat was small, but it suited me. They were brand new flats when I moved in, but very sadly as the years moved on the neighbours died off and we got some people in that were… about flags and that sort of thing. And I didn’t want any part of that. 

I am probably over-independent. 

I never wanted to live with anybody, I never wanted to marry, and I don’t like relationships, because of rejection as a child. 

When we were children you couldn’t complain of pain because you weren’t heeded, so you just suffered on. 

In my thirties I started to develop back problems and stupidly didn’t go to see about it until it was too late.  I was rushed to theatre with a prolapsed disc in my spine. 

That was the start of all my surgeries, and my back never really healed so I have lesions and scar tissue. 

I can potter about my own apartment without the wheelchair but I have limited mobility. If I do any distance it causes me a lot of pain. 

I have been using the wheelchair since I was 41-42. 

Initially, I didn’t really want it, but I was allocated a very good social worker who worked with people with acquired disabilities. I was very housebound. Without her, or the wheelchair, I don’t know where I would be.

Because of my back, I wouldn’t be able to manage a manual wheelchair. This one is electric and was provided by the spinal injuries team. Every night I charge it up. It’s not too big.. I wouldn’t want a big clumsy thing. 

I spent many years trying to educate myself to get into nursing, and then when I got in, it was taken from me, because of my spinal problems.

At that point I realised I am not going to have a wage coming in. And, I wasn’t familiar with the different benefits that people can get so it was tough, very tough.

In my wee apartment I can go about in my wheelchair. It’s quite big. 

When I first moved in I had nothing to do the place, just the bathroom. The back door leads out into the garden so I put a ramp in. I also had to get  Land and Property  to check out the apartment to do with my rates.

In the kitchen .. I’m not the best, I am rather lazy. I make things that I’m able to cope with.  

There are grab rails in the bathroom, but nowhere else. 

From the wheelchair I can get in and out of bed OK. There’s always ways and means, and I have my own wee way of doing it. I lean on my elbow and get myself up that way. 

Now, I also  have a stoma and catheter. Later surgery affected my bladder and bowel. In some ways I’m glad I had it done because I was having accidents… It’s the best of two options.

During Covid I had further surgery for a disc prolapse in my neck, and that has caused neuropathic pain in my hands. 

While I was recovering from surgery I put pen to paper and wrote my autobiography. It was published in 2014.

It’s called: For The Sins Of My Mother. I now travel around giving talks on the book.The first edition went straight to number 1.

My mother was a hotel owner in Donegal. In the ’30’s she became a widow, then she had a relationship and got pregnant at 38. That was a big secret. In the mid ’40’s  she travelled to Belfast to a private nursing home, “Lisieux”, and  that was were I was born. 

Her boyfriend wanted to marry her, but she wasn’t having it.. She went back to Donegal. He moved to Kent and had his own family. And I was put into St. Joseph’s orphanage. 

As a new-born, I was put up for adoption with a family near Castlewellan. Unfortunately,  after 14 months –  we don’t why –  I was taken from the family and put into Nazareth House where I spent 17 and a half years.

The regime was dreadful. 

The nuns were very cruel – particularly the ones who were in charge of us. There were over 100 girls there and we did all the work and we took all the beatings. We were bathed in Jeyes Fluid and given numbers. 

My number was 51.

There was one nun who never ever, called me by name. I hated her.

We all slept in big dormitories. 

I was extremely quiet.. so quiet…and would wet the bed. In the bathroom I had to rinse through my sheets in cold water and then take them to the laundry. That was a ritual of mine every morning. 

The formal education was within the building of Nazareth House and I was put into the backward class. Then, at the age of 11,  they sent children down to St. Monica’s. I went for a few weeks and was then sent to a Special School where I was classed as ESN. 

I left school with no education, no qualifications. 

None of us were advised, prepared or supported for leaving Nazareth House. Nothing. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a birth certificate.  I hadn’t a clue.

When I left school, I continued at Nazareth House and was sent for service, where I was a skivvy for about 2-3 months. But I soon walked away and ended up back at Nazareth House where I looked after the wee ones. Then I was told I was going into lodgings. 

I was 17 and half, and I lived there for 21 years. 

It was a wee two up, two down. The couple lived in one bedroom, I had the other. There was no bathroom. 

I went to work in a stitching factory and the lady that owned the house came to the factory every Thursday for my wages. And I didn’t know that wasn’t the norm.

Then I developed anorexia.

I didn’t want to live. What was the point of living? There was nobody to live for, not even for myself. 

I was in a psychiatric unit for a while. That’s when I decided I had to get off my butt because no-one is going to do it for me. In a newspaper I spotted a job advert for hospital orderlies and so I worked there from 1972-5. But was still living with that woman, and it was misery. 

She needed more money so she got me a side-job, that was her coercive control. 

I was a modern day slave. 

I knew I was better than that, but I didn’t know how to escape.

Once I started working as an orderly I was eventually promoted to Nursing Auxiliary. Working with babies… I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

The matron suggested that I should go to night classes to get some qualifications Which I did. It was tough. I struggled but I  kept at it until was able to the do the exam to get into nursing.

In 1980 I  became a nurse, an orthopaedic nurse, and worked  in Musgrave Park Hospital.  

But was still living with that woman. 

Then some of my friends from nursing told me about the housing Executive, and so that’s how I got a wee flat in Finaghy. 

When I moved in I had nothing of my own. No plates, pictures, cutlery. 

The girls I nursed with gave me some stuff to get me started and I fixed the place up to suit me. 

Mentally, it was very hard to go out and buy what I wanted because I thought I wasn’t worthy of it.  That was how I felt from being a child… to living with this woman.. and how she controlled me.. and the anorexia. 

But it was lovely… it was my own corner. I didn’t care if I didn’t have anything. I had my own space. 

Nobody else was going to say to me: what time is this for coming in.. I want this done and that done…It was a feeling that can never be described. 

In Nazareth House we were so busy working and praying all the time. I used to think: when I am going to get out of here? 

We weren’t allowed to speak during meal times. All our meals were taken in silence. We weren’t allowed to look in the mirrors. If you were seen looking in the mirror. You’d get a slap in the face. 

My  mother was a proud woman, a selfish woman, but she didn’t abort me, and for that  I am grateful. 

Because I wanted answers I went on the radio and to the newspapers.  At 59 I found out about my father’s side. When my father met his wife he told her he had a baby girl who had been adopted. 

On my father’s side I was the first born of eight. 

On my mother’s side, I was the last born of six.

But she didn’t just have one child out of wedlock – she had two.

My apartment is lovely.. it’s lovely  and I decorated it to suit me. 

I don’t like curtains. I have shutters in every room. It’s a very spacious sitting room  so I can whizz around in my wheelchair, do what I need to do, damp-dust as we used to say in nursing, and tidy the place. 

I don’t have any day to day help at home. 

There is a girl who comes in once a month to do the cleaning.  She washes the floors and the kitchen and bathroom. And I pay her.

I have a sweeper and I can go round with that on my wheelchair. All my floors are wooden, they were here when I moved in – which is great.

I have some nice pictures up of Newcastle, Donegal. It’s painted a grey/blue paint, quite warm. 

I make all the decisions. 

Sometimes I still feel I  really shouldn’t be doing that…. but that’s the damage the Sisters of Nazareth have caused. At 75 years of age I went for counselling. Isn’t that sad…

People say: they were looking after you. They weren’t: The older girls were looking after us, and then we looked after the young ones.

The only thing they cared about was the church and praying.

One evening, I remember,  we were all ushered up to the church for a big mass. At the top of the aisle there was a box and when I looked in the box and there was a little girl, younger than me, called Susan Mc Cann.

She was only 6 and a half, and had been sent to live with a family in Beechmount, when she went missing. It was the big snow of 1963. There was a big search for her and she was found in the Bog Meadows, her arm sticking out of the snow, she was dead.

The big girls used to talk about her all the time. That’s why her name stayed with me and I swore, when I got older, I would find out about her and I did.

The nuns stuck the child in an unmarked grave, with an old man buried on top of her. When I found out where she was buried I blew my top. 

I was determined to do something about it. I contacted the BBC and they covered the story. The next day they got a phonecall from a man who was prepared to pay for a headstone for her.  I also found out who the man was and put his name on it as well.

My biggest problem is that without my wheelchair I can’t walk too far.

When I’m in the kitchen I can potter about. 

If I’m in the sitting room.. well it’s quite big, I mostly use the wheelchair. If I’m in the bathroom, it’s a wet room and  I can manage. In the bedroom I can manage, but the wheelchair is always there. 

When I do the laundry, I just shove it all in the machine. I can manage it.  Outside, I  put a basket on the wheelchair.  I got a guy to bring the clothes line down so its a bit lower for me. 

I used to drive everywhere, all over Ireland. But I can’t do that now because of the pain in my hands, so I mostly just drive locally.  

And I like to do it, because I don’t want to ask people to help me.

In the morning I am rather lazy, but I take that  time to get myself organised. It takes a wee while in the bathroom with the stoma.  

I maybe go to Forestside, take my wheelchair around the shops or meet up with friends for tea or coffee. And I love style…. my mother was a woman who wore style. I like style. I like bright colours, I don’t like dark colours.

At home I like to watch TV, real murder programmes. I love all the forensics… and I enjoy the fact that I  have control over that TV remote.  Before, when I lived with that woman, she used to have all the control.

At the minute I’m doing a little painting by numbers. I can only do so much of it at a time because it hurts my hands a bit. On  Monday I take part in a community choir, and I’m also in a folk choir. 

I used to play the  accordion, the guitar, concertina, bodhran. Not now, because of the lack of dexterity in my fingers –   and I miss that. 

But I still play the bodhran at mass, it wakens them all up!