Angela Sweeney “This is My Story”

My name is Angela Sweeney, nee O’Brien. I was born in Glenbrook, Co Cork, in 1953, and raised in Passage West, where I still live in Pembroke Wood.

Unfortunately, I was born with two clubfeet and this rendered me deformed and disabled. My first operation was when I was 3 weeks old. I had to go to Dublin for the operation and remained there in Linden Care Home until I was 8 years old, when I was transferred to St Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital in Cork. This enabled my late mother, Peggy O’Brien, to visit me more frequently. She did visit me once when I was in Dublin, when I was about five, but I was too young to remember.

But I do remember her visiting me when I was 8 years old. It’s my oldest memory, one I have never forgotten or ever will. It’s tucked away inside my heart right where she is. And it will go to my grave with me.

Why is that you may ask? What happened that day when you were 8 years old?

Well, the care home consisted of seven orphans and other patients. These were children who were recovering from operations, and from tuberculosis and polio, which was widespread in the 1950s.

A lady would come in every Friday and distribute brown paper bags to the orphans, because they did not have any visitors. The bags were filled with a chocolate cup, a sherbet fountain, a Lucky Bag and sweets and a drink in a glass bottle. We would gather at one bed and have what we called our ‘Munchie picnic’.

I always took my brown bag the same as the other seven, genuinely assuming I was an orphan.

The years rolled on and I took no notice.

I always got Rupert the Bear annual at Christmas and every week I would be given Bunty and Judy comics wrapped like they were posted.

I never asked where they came from and no one said anything, so I just took my comics without question. Then one day I was sitting in my bed and I saw a beautiful lady walking down the ward and wondered who she was visiting.

As she came towards my bed she was starting to cry, “gee I thought her child must be really sick because she is crying.” When she came to my bed, she walked towards me and to my surprise she handed me a bag of Bon Bons.

(l-r) A young Angela in her mothers arms. The gates of Linden. Angela posing. This is what Clubfeet look like.

“Hello, Angela,” she said, grabbing me, and hugging and kissing me and sobbing while she was squeezing me. I was stunned, thinking what’s happening? I do remember saying “How do you know my name?” She smiled at me and said, “Because I’m your Mammy, sweetheart.”

My heart sank and I put out my hand, to hand her back the sweets. That’s all I was worried about, losing the lovely bag of sweets.

“I am so sorry, but you have the wrong bed,” I told her. “I am an orphan. I don’t have a Mammy or Daddy. She stared at me sadly with a puzzled look. She sat on the bed, sighing. She wrapped me gently in her arms and said “What! I really am your Mammy, pet.”

She held her arms out and said “Come here, pet. You’re my little girl.” I wrapped my arms around her and we both sat there sobbing. I was crying because I was certain she was mistaken.

Then she caught my two hands and explained that I had three sisters and two brothers. She opened her purse and showed me a photograph of myself when I was 5 years old, in her arms, taken at the care home in Dublin. I was amazed to hear that I had a family of my own.

My mother explained to me how far away my home was, and didn’t I get parcels and comics and the Rupert annuals from her? I said I did not know where they came from.

She lifted a Rupert annual from the locker, opened the front cover and showed me the inscription but I couldn’t read it.

“To my little sweetheart Angela. Love Mam, Dad and family, we love you a lot little tot”.

It was written on all the stuff I received.

Then she called the staff nurse and asked why I was not told where all the parcels came from, and roared at her why in the name of God did I think I was an orphan, and she replied that they did not say anything to me.

My mother asked why, and she just coldly said, “It was not our place to tell her.”

(l-r) A young Angela pictured in her bed at Linden, front child. Angela’s first weekend home from the Orthopaedic Hospital.

My mother lost the plot and demanded I was to be transferred to Cork immediately. One week later I was sent to St Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital in Cork. This was in Gurranabraher Cork City. This of course gave me yet another title. First, I was told I was a Dub and now I was a Norrie. When I was allowed home once a month for a weekend, I became a Culchie (from the country).

On my first visit, I came into the sitting room in my wheelchair to a sea of faces, my accent broke the ice and they couldn’t stop laughing when I was asking in a Dublin accent ” Where’s me Daddy” as in Cork he was referred to as Dad. These visits went on for over 2 years. Eventually I was discharged in 1963. My homecoming was the same day that the late President John F Kennedy was assassinated.

After leaving the hospital that day November 23rd 1963 I never looked back. Everyone assumed I was in a hospital all those years and I never thought to contradict them. I never ever mentioned those 10 years ever again to a living soul. Not to my Mother, Siblings, Husband, or Children. I am afraid what happened in Lindon will go to my grave with me.

I went to a specialist at age 65 who said hiding my past just because I was in a care home was a major part of my recovery and to go home and tell my family it was not a hospital – “You don’t have to go into any details”. I did as advised. And again I never looked back. That’s why my autobiography will be entitled: “I NEVER LOOKED BACK.”

I hit the headlines because I was the only case of someone with two clubfeet to walk unaided at the tender age of nine. I convalesced at home for four years and this is where I got my love of history and the material for “Rascals & Rogues”. My parents had lots of old photographs and locals would visit, as my mother was not able to go to them. I only went to the school a few times to prepare for my confirmation. During those years my older siblings would also take me out in a timber boxcar made by my eldest brother.

At the age of 14, I started work at St Patrick’s Woollen Mills in Douglas as an Invisible Mender, working on tweed which was very popular in the 1960s and 70s. This was of course with no formal education.

At age 17, I married Paddy Sweeney. We were so blessed to have 4 lovely children Martin, Steve, Gemma and Edward, and 9 beautiful grandchildren.

For the first few years, Paddy would do all the form filling and if I was alone and had to write anything, the phrase “Oh, I forgot my glasses” always came in handy, and a willing assistant would fill in the form. But putting an “X” where I should have signed my name always gave me a shiver down my spine.

One day my eldest son, aged 6 at the time, asked me to help him with his homework, and I asked him to wait

until his dad came home from work.

To my horror he said, “I know why you can’t help me, Mam, it’s because you can’t read or write, can you?”

I just tearfully answered “Not yet love”. I knew then instantly that I had to get a good education fast. especially for my children, I could never allow them to struggle through life like I did, it’s too humiliating for any child.

I decided to make enquiries about acquiring an education. The following Monday, I enrolled in the College of Commerce on a special course for people with literacy problems. This I did for over three years. Completing my state exams opened up a new world to me. I realised I had a hunger for knowledge and education.

(l-r) Angela and her husband Paddy. The Sweeney family. Angela and Mary O’Keeffe in Medjugorje

As my children started to grow up, I got itchy feet and decided at the age of 46 to leave my job at the Video Club to return to further education. I enrolled on a Business and Secretarial Studies Course at St Peter’s Community School in Passage West. This opened so many doors for me. I soaked up every minute of the course like a sponge, earning the title ‘Most Accomplished Student of the Year’. I was, and still am, certain they made a mistake, but I didn’t argue with them.

And then wonders will never cease! I acquired a place at University College Cork (UCC) on a course entitled Computer Science and Technology, and Webpage Construction. And to my surprise I passed the exams (barely) by the skin of my teeth.

Whilst working for the Health Service Executive (HSE), I got itchy feet again and decided to give up my job and to do what I always wanted to do – WRITE A BOOK.

How I ended up writing six books is beyond me. I can’t answer that question, it just happened. I was so lucky that I had an education under my belt. During all this I suffered with depression, but it pushed me forward all the time, because keeping busy always made the depression easier to bear and kept it at bay. Fittingly, my latest study undertaking is a Mental Health Studies Diploma.

I do hope that this introduction will encourage anyone with a disability or depression, or any other mental health issues to take inspiration from reading my true story.