Last month 'The Irish Times' interviewed Theresa Tinggal, who learnt at the age of 49 that she was adopted. Her adoptive mother, now remarried as Kathleen McArdle, was hurt by the way she was portrayed. She tells Anne Dempsey her side of the story

'We both wanted a baby. Our daughter Margaret was five and we didn't want her growing up an only child," says Kathleen McArdle, who is now 79. "We heard how friends had got a little girl and said we were interested too. Everything was arranged through the maternity hospital and the GP. I was impatient and all psyched up for a baby. At some stage I was told to 'make sure you do it legally', but that went way over my head."

After the birth, McArdle received directions to collect the newborn from a private house. "She was three days old. The nurse said she would let me out the side door, so that the mother wouldn't see me, and I realised the mother was in the house. I didn't see any reason to ask questions about her. I felt sorry for her but thought I was solving a problem for her, as she couldn't take the baby home.

"I registered her as Theresa Hiney with myself and my late husband as her parents. It didn't cost me a thought. I believed I was registering a nameless child. I had been expecting her for so long I felt she was mine.

"We were living in Cabra then, and one day Margaret came in and said that someone said Theresa wasn't her sister. I said to my husband we will have to get out of here to protect Theresa, so we got a transfer to Rathfarnham. Everyone there thought that Theresa was ours, and I didn't think of her as adopted either. My way of looking at it was, if we had approached the adoption board our house furnishings might not have been considered good enough. But once we had her, and she had a proper birth certificate, I felt she could not be touched. I was building on that."

When Theresa was two, the couple adopted a third daughter, who had already been registered in her birth mother's name, which meant official contact with the health board. "The woman said, 'We know all about Theresa,' and I thought the roof had come down on my head. I took it to mean they knew how we came to have Theresa. She told me what I had done was against the law, and I had to sign two forms, which I know now were something to do with registration."

From then on the family was visited every month by a health-board social worker. "I assumed they were checking up on the way I was rearing the children. I saw it as harassment. I had to accept their visits but still thought of Theresa as my child and blocked out the fact that they were coming to see her too as well as I was able to."

Theresa's childhood memories are of a difficult relationship with her mother, but McArdle sees it differently. "I don't remember singling Theresa out as any way different, and I was very hurt that she said I never loved her. Our family was normal, with the normal family tiffs. She was an easy child to rear, but she is sensitive. Her father was fun-loving, and Theresa laughed a lot with him. He was happy-go-lucky, whereas I did the worrying. My hair went white when I was quite young, and he used to introduce me and say: 'This is Kathleen. She went white for both of us.' "

Jimmy died when Theresa was 16, and McArdle remembers a difficult time. "I was grieving, I was on medication, I didn't know what I was doing. It's hard to judge whether his death made us closer or not, but when Theresa left for England [at the age of 19\] I have no memories of saying goodbye to her."

Contact between mother and daughter lessened progressively over the years as Theresa married, separated and made a new life for herself and her two children in England. McArdle acknowledges the links were scant. "There were accidental meetings at family occasions. I knew there was a curtain between us, and I wondered if she suspected anything, and it made me wary of making contact with her.

"I discussed telling her everything with my eldest daughter but had no documentation to back it up with and thought it would be too upsetting for her. My daughter talked about deception, and it was the first time I ever felt I had been deceiving Theresa."

When, last year, Theresa accidentally discovered her true origins she was extremely upset. "I can understand it. Her whole life fell apart and she was absolutely beside herself," says McArdle.

"I never thought of it as her right to know. I know generally everyone has the right to know who their mother is, and maybe earlier on I would have gone in that direction. But I never particularly wanted to tell her, and when I heard she was told I was very concerned about her welfare. I knew she would be upset, particularly because she hadn't been told before. Now if by some means I could find out who the mother is, I would myself personally go and meet with anyone to ease the pain that Theresa is going through.

"If I could do it all over again, I would do it differently. I would apply to the health board to adopt a child and wait the six months until the mother gave her consent, and I would tell the child. But even with all that, I can't understand how she has such animosity against me. If I could write this story myself I would call it a good act that went astray."

Theresa Tinggal received many phone calls in response to her search for her birth mother. All were in support and some told of personal experiences of adoption. Unfortunately, none shed any more light on the whereabouts of her birth mother, and Tinggal is still looking. "I was born Margaret O'Grady on June 9th, 1954," she says. "If anyone has any information, please contact me at 00-44-1202-257961 or on my mobile, 00-44-7884-057826"