Three siblings abandoned by mother in phones boxes in the ‘60s united after DNA tests

Sunday World

01-07-2025

'On the car seat was a tartan bag – looking inside she realised there was a baby in it'
A trio of siblings who were abandoned as babies in phone boxes and in a car united after nearly half a century thanks to DNA testing.
David Boyle, Helen Ward and John Dowling were all found by strangers after being left by their mother for others to look after.
It turned out their mother was a Kerry woman who had a long affair with a band leader of Scottish descent.
The couple romanced while living in Dublin and not only did the Scottish man father the three siblings, but he also had 11 other known children.
'I grew up in Ashbourne Co Meath. My parents, they had a farm over in Oldtown and my father would travel over and back to the farm every day,' recalls Helen.
'My mum was a housewife. I grew up in a very happy household. My mum and dad told me quite early on I was adopted. I'd say around five. Probably didn't take it in, so to speak, then. I just knew that I was cared for and loved and just 'leave me alone I'm going off to play'
'As I became a teenager the curiosity was escalating and I used to speak with my mum about it and she used always say 'you know Helen, you have a right to know, there's a missing piece of your life there'.
John Dowling with a report about him being found
'My dad, on the other hand, was I suppose a man of the times. I think he had a fear in him that if I did go off to look, what I would find? I remember just asking him, 'I really want to know, I want to go on the journey to find out more about who I am' and he just looked at me and he said 'Helen, would you just let sleeping dogs lie'.
'Oh God, I was gutted, absolutely gutted. Then I made a decision, when I had my first daughter, I really felt the need to look for my mum. I felt she had to give her daughter up, what was the reasons behind that, I was looking at my own beautiful daughter and saying, 'she is missing out on her beautiful granddaughter'.'
Helen found out she had been abandoned in a phone box in Dundalk on March 11, 1968, and was found by a passing lorry driver.
'I remember one of my friends Sandra said 'there's the number for the Joe Duffy show', they might give you some direction,' she explains.
David McBride and Helen Ward Ward recall their childhoods
'I picked up the phone, three, two, one, 'now you're talking to Joe'. The following day I got a call back from the Joe Duffy show. On air they had the lorry driver, Donal Boyle, and to speak to him was just an incredible moment.'
David McBride grew up near Belfast. 'I had fantastic childhood, I had fantastic parents, two fantastic sisters, a fantastic brother,' he recalls.
'I was brought up during the Troubles, but didn't know it was the Troubles, I had just a normal childhood playing outside all the time, my brother and my sisters very protective towards me. My mother would tell me that I was special because she had chosen me.'
When he needed a birth certificate to join the military, his father explained what happened to him.
Helen Ward
'I was found in a car on the 16th of January 1962. I was found by a lady called Mrs Pullen, her husband was a doctor at the gynaecology unit of Queens University,' he says. 'She had been shopping earlier that day and she left all her shopping in the car and she decided to go out about nine o'clock at night to bring the shopping in.
'She opened the door of the car and on the seat was a tartan bag and when she looked at the tartan bag she realised there was a baby in it. And they called the police. I was then taken to the hospital in Belfast. They said that the clothes that I had on were quite expensive. I had a bottle with me and they said I was in excellent condition.'
A Phone Box Babies newspaper clipping from the 1960s
David moved to the west midlands in England about 20 years ago and decided to try to find his birth mother.
His older sister urged him to contact the TV programme Long Lost Family, and through them he did a DNA test. He was told that through DNA testing it was found he had a sister, Helen, and the pair met up.
'I was totally shocked,' admits a joyful Helen.
David McBride, Helen Ward and John Dowling shared the same parents
The siblings found out their mother was Catholic and father Protestant. They never got to meet their mother, who died several years ago in Co Kerry.
They then learned they had another brother, John Dowling, who was abandoned in 1965.
'My mam and dad, they never knew I was a foundling, it was only in 2013 I found out. A social worker friend found out that I was after being left in a phone box in Drogheda,' he says.
A Phone Box Babies newspaper clipping from the 1960s
His daughter Donna saw the Long Lost Family show with Helen and David, and when she saw a family resemblance, and also that Helen, like her father, had been found in a phone box, she urged him to get in touch.
He was a DNA match with Helen and David.
'I didn't know the circumstances, 'why was I left', so I said to myself 'leave it now'. But I think as you get older you do think about your adoption, especially as you see your own children growing up,' he reflects.