Australian teenager seeking father who may be from Meath

AUSTRALIA Sydney teen trying to contact dad who doesn't know she exists

A young Australian woman is searching for her father, who she believes is a Meath man. Ella Lannigan, who is 19 and lives in Sydney, hopes to find her father, Andy, who visited Australia in March 2001. She knows very little else about him.

Ella, who has the support of her mother Melissa, a primary school teacher, has taken her search to social media and hopes she might be able to connect with her father.

“I don't want to intrude on the life I assume my father has now. I just him to know who I am and me to know who he is. Maybe if I'm lucky we can even meet," she says.

“I'm not asking for anything. I don't expect anything, I just want to know a little bit about who he is.” Ella explains: “My father was on holidays or some form of a business trip in Australia in March 2001. He was staying with a friend in a local suburb (Cremorne). My mother and him met on a night out at a Irish pub in Sydney, Scruffy Murphy's on 11th March 2001. I was the product of that night.

“My father returned to Ireland prior to my mum discovering she was pregnant. She had no way of contacting him as she only knew his first name, Andy.” “From my mum's memory, my father was an average height, had a strong build a fair complexion, red hair and freckles. I am the only one in my family with red hair and freckles so it explains where I get it from. His name was Andy and was 37 at the time so would be 56 now.” Ella is working as a tennis coach in Sydney and intends to study sports management/event management in university next year.

“My mum has raised me to be the woman I am today," she says. "I want to enforce the fact that I am not after anything, I just want to meet my biological father who to this day does not know I exist." Ella also has Irish links on her mothers side and their ancestors are from Kilkenny. Ella and her mother came to Ireland in 2018 to meet her relatives and she fell in love with the country, and would love to return again to meet her father.

She can be contacted on ella.lanigan11@gmail.com.