New book searches for the truth behind the council estate beauty and the wealthy Lisburn family that abandoned her

John’s wife, Stanella, grew up in a council estate in Carlisle, unaware that her roots lay back in Lisburn with the well-to-do Clennaghan family.

When she was in her twenties she discovered the truth and desperately wanted to find her birth mother. Sadly the two never met, but after Stanella’s death, her husband John decided to try to fill in the gaps about Stanella’s birth family.

After 18 months of research, which took him from from Carlisle to Dumfries and on to Lisburn, John has published his first book entitled ‘Lovely Stanella: My Quest for the Truth’.

"I was married to Stanella for 59 years when she died from Alzheimers,” explained John. “I had looked after her at home for six years helped by my four grown-up children and several grandchildren.

“The book tells the story of Stanella, a strikingly-beautiful Irish woman who was born to live in an historic Scottish mansion but was denied this wealthy lifestyle she should have had. Instead, she was given away as a baby.

"Stanella`s Lisburn mother did not want her. But a loving working class couple took the baby in and gave her a name. The baby from the mansion grew up into a woman who found true happiness in the couple`s three-bedroom council house in Ridgemount Road Carlisle.

"But Stanella knew there was something that was not quite right. In her twenties, the secret of her birth came out came out which made her desperate to meet her real mother.

"Stanella spent the rest of her life trying to meet her. And her real mother was equally as keen to know about the baby she had given birth to but had given away. But barriers were always put in the way. Sadly, mother and daughter never did meet again.”

The book also tells the story of the Scottish mansion, Terregles House, near Dumfries, seat for centuries of the aristocratic Maxwell family and its links with Mary Queen of Scots, as well as the story of Stanella`s Irish family, the Clenaghans from Lisburn and their struggles as Catholics during the Irish troubles a century ago.

"Stanella was born Carlisle and was given away as a baby and was always known as Henderson, called after the Carlisle working class family that brought her up. But her real name was Clenaghan,” continued John. “Her grandfather was James Clenaghan, a Lisburn cattle dealer who moved to Scotland over a century ago to escape the Irish troubles.

"His brother Hugh, who was in the cattle dealing business with James, stayed in Lisburn but he moved to Dublin to escape the Troubles.

"Stanella`s mother, Ann Clenaghan, was the daughter of James and lived with10 brothers and sisters in a 200 room historic mansion, Terregles House, near Dumfries.

"She never met her mother but always was trying to find out about her and others in the biological family. She never did find out very much but after her death I decided to fill in the gaps.”

For further information, or to purchase a copy of the book published on March 26, email [email protected].