Canada woman meets long-lost Irish brother after 44 years

Treacy-Kay Curran was adopted when she was six weeks old - but she never forgot about her Irish birth family.

The culmination of Curran’s search came through arrivals at Calgary International Airport.

The Alberta resident held up a sign which read, “Has anyone seen my big brother Sean… Welcome to Canada.”

Curran’s older brother Sean Canny had made the trip from Galway to meet the little sister he went unaware of for four decades.

“Now we’re family. Little sister I’ve missed for 44 years,” Canny said as he embraced her.

Curran always knew she was adopted. From the age of six weeks old to ten years old she lived with her adoptive family in Dublin before they made the voyage to Alberta.

When she was 25, she looked into her past.

“I decided to look into my birth mother,” she told Global News Canada. “At that time, there wasn’t emailing or anything so it was just letters back and forth.

“Long story short, [the adoption agency] ended up getting a hold of her. Her [current husband] knows nothing about it, so she didn’t want to meet me. So I just sort of left it alone.”

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Canny, also unaware of any birth siblings, decided to look into his adoptive mother.

Similarly, his mother did not want contact, but the adoption agency revealed to him that he had a sister.

The Irish adoption agency, ironically also called Curran, reached out to Curran and Canny and connected the dots.

After emailing back and forth since March, Curran, Canny and Canny’s wife had their first video chat in April.

“Of course it was minus stupid here so I was wearing a toque and a coat and everything,” Curran laughed. “I was just in my car and we chatted for about 45 minutes. Then, when I came home, we chatted again.

“We’ve noticed with our chatting we have a few similarities. But I have an Irish temper, a short temper, and he doesn’t.”

Curran said in the short time they’ve been communicating, they’ve already developed a strong bond and knew they had to meet in person immediately.

“Last week, I just booked my tickets and said, ‘That’s it.’ I couldn’t wait any longer. This completes it. We were talking and talking and this completes it. She is the only blood relative I have, barring my three sons. I looked for my mother, she didn’t want to meet me, but I got better news, I’ve got a sister,” he said.

“We’re just happy to have found each other and we just want to go ahead and join our families together,” Curran agreed. “This was always that little something that was just missing. I can’t express enough how much I love my family and they’re truly my family and [I have] the best cousins and everything. But this is definitely an extra little piece that I’m really happy to have.”