Survival, family secrets, and the search to belong
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Mario Rosestock Podcast. Thanks to Hum. Finance made easy when you shop tech, electrical, appliances, kitchens and much more. Flexify Europe Limited trading as Hum is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
Coming up on this episode of the Mario Rosenstock Podcast.
My memory is of reaching out to grasp a cable and then everything seemed to freeze and and then I fell. Just went poof. After what turned out to be about five hundred feet, my movement slowed down and I slalomed to the side of the gully and I came to a stop. Just me and this, you know, remote mountain. I just lay there, I was getting cold, I was hypothermic. I sort of said, Well, if I do get out of here, some things are gonna have to change.
Paul Cullen is one of Ireland's best-known journalists, having spent more than 30 years at the Irish Times covering health, politics, education, and public affairs. But despite having a successful career and happy family, Paul always felt like an outsider, like he didn't really belong anywhere. Paul was adopted at the age of three, which is quite late for an adoption, and he knew nothing about his parents, why they had sent him into institutional care as a baby, and what happened to him during those first three years. Years of his life. As he lay injured in the snow after falling off Germany's highest mountain, Paul knew that if he survived the fall, he had no choice but to face up to all these questions and to find the answers.
What happened next is a fascinating story of discovery captured in Paul's recently published memoir called Outsider. Paul uses all of the investigative skills he had built over a career in journalism to discover where he was born, who his birth parents were, what had happened that. That had led to his adoption and some of the key characters that played such an important role in his life along the way.
What triggered Paul Cullen’s life‑changing promise while stranded on a German mountain?
This is also a story about a certain time in Ireland and indeed in England when the adoption system was quite complex and hard to penetrate, and the impact that that system had on countless adopted children like Paul over the decades. Paul joined me in studio recently and shared his full story in such an open and honest way, and it makes for a fascinating episode of the Mario River. Rosenstock Podcast.
So I knew nothing about those first three years of my life. And it didn't take much reading into the literature of psychology to realise that they are the formative years. And I didn't know where I was, who I was with, whether I was properly cared for, and whether I was loved. We all want to be loved. Some of them were sort of Mills and Boonish. My real father was a doctor, yeah. And my real mother was great beauty and heirs was a love that was never matched, but it was ill fated. The powers to be wouldn't let them be together. Uh it was very tragic. And then another time she would tell me that my parents were something else and they died in a car crash. So it was fantasizing. Yeah, yeah, and it was inconsistent.
I'm gonna get a second chance here in life. So what am I gonna do with this second chance? Obviously I'm going to be a good father, good husband, good citizen, but m this is going to be my project. I'm gonna find out more about who I am, the better to know about where I'm gonna go. It was Father's Day recently and my nineteen year old gave me a card and well I won't repeat the words but uh they made me cry and you know I cry regularly. I I'm in compensation mode, I'm playing catch up mode really.
My full conversation with Paul Cullen is coming up in just a few minutes time, but speaking of memoirs, Joe Duffy, formerly of RTE's Live Line, is about to publish his. That's gonna be fruity. As you might imagine, every broadcaster wants to be the first to interview him. We got exclusive access to Joe's voicemails. Good afternoon to you. You've reached Joe Duffy. Go on, leave a message,
leave a message, come on, come on, come on, come on, go on, talk to Joe, talk to Joe, come on. Joe, how are you? It's Patrick Kealty here. You've probably seen that I'm going to be back on the late late this season.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:53
2
What triggered Paul Cullen’s life‑changing promise while stranded on a German mountain?
1:53–4:21
3
How did Paul’s late adoption and unknown first three years shape his sense of belonging?
4:21–30:16
4
What key moments from Paul’s journalism career does he share before discussing his memoir?
30:16–53:38
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Mario Rosenstock Podcast
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