‘My parents gave me a life I could not have had without them’

by Kate Heaney

This very week 25 years ago a Donegal couple set off on a marathon journey to China to bring home their adopted daughter who was the first adoptee from the country to be brought to the north west.

The Donegal News this week caught up with that baby, Rosa Kelly, now a Physiotherapist working in Birmingham, but very much an Ardara woman at heart.

Rosa’s groundbreaking adoption by her parents Moira and David Kelly of Doohill, Ardara, was reported in this paper 25 years ago and resurfaced in the ‘The Way We Were’ archive this week (page 22). It details how the couple made the extensive journey to Chong Qing to collect their nine month old daughter named Ding Hong, whom they had already decided to call Rosa.

Rosa explained this week how growing up in South Donegal she never really felt different.

As soon as she could understand her parents and was old enough, they were open and frank with her about her adoption.

“Mum always told me I was born in her heart rather than growing in her stomach. At first I used to ask how did I get out of her heart!

“It was my granny, my Mum’s Mum, who saw an advert in the paper about the possibility of adopting a child from China and she encouraged my parents to pursue it, thankfully.

“My parents gave me a life that I could not have had without them and I love them so much. I am like Mum in many ways in that we both tend to over-think things. We love clothes, make-up and handbags. My love of sport, music and movies is from Dad. We tend to watch some favourite movies over again and repeat some of the lines from those movies together,” Rosa said.

The story as it appeared in the Donegal News 25 years ago.

Growing up in Ardara, everyone knew Rosa.

It was only when she went to St Columba’s Secondary School in Glenties, with a large catchment area, that she became more aware of the difference although it never bothered her.

“I have had some remarks about my ethnicity but not what I would call racist. I just brush them off. I did have a nurse come to help me while at work. She was of Asian ethnicity too. After I first spoke she expressed shock at my accent being so different from what she expected. Maybe a case of think before you comment!” she added.

Rosa went to GMIT and studied Sports Science then to LYIT, now ATU, where she began her Physiotherapy course which then finished with her degree in Coventry in a course affiliated to ATU.

“Mum and Dad have been so supportive in all my career choices and always encouraged me to follow my dreams.

“They never stopped believing in me and have given me everything.

“I miss home. If I could only pick up the hospital here and move it to Donegal.

“Eventually my fiancé, Tony Byrne (from Glenties), and I would love to move home. I miss the beaches. We both play Gaelic over here but we are missing the competitiveness of the teams we grew up playing with.

“I have no yearning to go to China. Donegal is my home,” Rosa concluded.

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