Eighty-one-year-old adoptee applies to trace family under new Irish law

Nine hundred people have registered to contact their parents or children after landmark adoption legislation

An 81-year-old, adopted as a child, and a 74-year-old mother who had her baby adopted are among 900 people who have registered to trace their parents and children after landmark legislation was passed in Ireland.

The public response to the new laws, which came into force on 1 July, is opening decades-old wounds for children and parents who were separated at birth, some sent to the UK or the US, over the past 100 years.