Tell No One

Longlisted for the 2023 Walkley Longform Journalism Book Award
Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties, he started searching for his birth parents and eventually discovered the identity of his birth mother: he was told she was a Catholic nun. And she wanted nothing to do with him. For the next thirty years Brendan had no clues as to the identity of his birth father.

In 2018, a DNA test provided the answer: he was the son of a priest. His father had studied in a Trappist monastery in Ireland, returned to Australia and become a celebrated outback missionary.

After decades of searching and obstruction from the Catholic church, the whole truth was finally exposed. Brendan Watkins' birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. Tell No One reveals the moving story of that incredible discovery, and explores the questions, anxieties and reflections arising from his hidden past.

'I read Tell No One in one sitting. I could not put it down. Everyone needs to know where they come from. It is such a core need. Brendan's persistence against secrecy and lies was a powerful reminder that many end their lives without knowing. I so wanted a fairytale ending and then I remembered how cruel institutionalised religious power is to children and women. Read it and weep and then get strategic - it has to end.' Wendy McCarthy AO, author of Don't Be Too Polite, Girls