Niall Boylan and his biological sister Fran Kavanagh, pictured during their first meeting last week, when they were reunited 50 years after being separated . A brother and sister who were separated as babies and put up for adoption five decades ago have been reunited after realising they grew up just 500 metres apart. Niall Boylan, 51, a  radio presenter in Dublin, met his biological sister who now lives in London, Fran Kavanagh, 49, for the first time this weekend after finding each other online last year. Niall, who has a show on Irish radio station 4FM, hit the headlines last year when he spoke about discovering that his birth mother had a little girl when he was just 13 months old in 1965. He said he only learned that he had a sister when the information was disclosed ‘casually’ in a letter from the adoption agency. Niall had been adopted from St Patrick’s Home on Dublin’s Navan Road by Frank and Lily Boylan, and grew up in Raheny with the couple’s biological daughter Geraldine and a younger brother Arthur, who was also adopted. His decision to speak out last year led indirectly to the reunion with sister Fran, who had begun the process of finding out more about the circumstances of her own birth. She was adopted in 1966 by Maria and Christopher Kavanagh from Glasnevin. In recent years, Fran’s sister told her that her birth mother had turned to the courts to try to keep her. ‘I felt I needed to know more,’ she said. ‘When I was given my birth weight and other basic details, I couldn’t believe it.’ Fran went on to meet her birth mother four years ago, an encounter she describes as ‘overwhelming’. However, her birth mother did not tell her about the existence of brother Niall. Last year, she was contacted by an adoption agency telling her they had received a letter from her older brother who wanted to get in touch. They added that he had announced his wish ‘publicly’. ‘When I heard “publicly”, I was really confused, so myself and my partner Googled “Niall” and “St Patrick’s Home”, and up came this story about Niall. I knew it had to be him. I made contact immediately and we talked for hours.’ St Patrick's mother and baby home on the Navan Road in Dublin, where Niall and Fran's mother was living with them as babies and from where they were adopted . Niall when he was a baby (left) and as a toddler (right). He was adopted by Frank and Lily Boylan, and grew up in Raheny with the couple’s biological daughter Geraldine and a younger brother Arthur, who was also adopted . Niall's original birth document, which registers his birth at St Patrick's Home on September 21, 1963 . She flew to meet her brother for the first time last weekend, along with her partner, and the pair went for dinner and a night out together. ‘It went really well,’ said Niall. ‘We are both delighted. We had spoken on the phone and on Facebook and then finally we met. ‘She’s very like me in many ways. I could hear her personality and we are very similar. You never know how these things will go but this went really well.’ ‘We were in the same crowd, we knew the same people, it’s crazy to think that,’ Niall said. ‘Imagine if we’d ended up going out with each other? This is why people need to know who they are.’ His sister, who has two adult children, said: ‘To meet Niall after all these years is wonderful.’ Both were struck by the fact that they grew up in close proximity to one another. Fran, who works as an estate agent and has a son, 27, and daughter, 22, said: ‘I was born in November 1965, just 13 months after Niall and we would have been in St Patrick’s at the same time. ‘We definitely overlapped, but we were never told.’ Fran’s adoptive family, the Kavanaghs, who she is no longer in touch with after her adopted parents died when she was a teenager, moved from Glasnevin to Raheny, where Niall lived, in 1969. ‘So we were only down the road from each other,’ she pointed out. ‘I went to Tamangos nightclub and Niall would have DJ’d there. We were definitely in each other’s company.’ Niall is a radio presenter on Irish station Classic Hits 4FM. It was through his high media profile that Fran was easily able to track him down and contacted him through his email on the station's website . The pair found out about each other after being sent a letter from an adoption agency. Fran was given the name of her brother and began searching for him online and came across the Irish DJ and got in touch . She pointed out that one of Niall's best friends even DJ'd at her 21st birthday party. Both Niall, a father of three, and Fran have met their biological mother in recent years. She gave birth to a third child, whose care she initially entrusted to her sister-in-law. She eventually married and had a fourth child, and raised her two youngest children with her husband, who was never told of the existence of Niall and Fran. They have considerable sympathy for their birth mother. Niall said: ‘I feel sorry for my mother: she’s old and doesn’t remember a huge amount. ‘She said they [the St Patrick’s home mothers] could be sent out to clean a church, and come back to find their baby gone. ‘She said the mothers would slip notes into their babies’ nappies in the hope that the adoptive parents would keep them and give them to the children later.’ However, Niall says he has drawn a blank in researching his birth father. ‘I asked my mother, “Who is my father?” She was really vague, and said he worked in a church. I asked her was he a priest and she wouldn’t say.’ Fran explained that she had little interest in discovering her background until recent years. Learning ‘basic details’ about her early days, such as her birth weight, made her curious. ‘It was, like, up until then, I wasn’t even born but here I was, on paper, with another life that I didn’t know anything about. ‘I was 46 when I met my mother, and she was 80. She is a frail woman and I had no axe to grind with her. I wasn’t there to beat her up, it was just to meet her. ‘I feel so sorry for those women: they were treated so badly and for her to have found us all means so much to her. Fran Kavanagh (right) with her 27-year-old son (centre) and her 22-year-old daughter (left) together recently . ‘I’m delighted now that I found out. I feel kind of guilty that I didn’t do more before I was 46 but I just accepted the situation. I believed I was a lucky child because I had been adopted. ‘But I could have met Niall a lot sooner.’ The pair plan to meet up again the future and Fran, who will be 50 this year, is holding her birthday party back home in Dublin.
Niall Boylan, 51, met his biological sister for the first time last weekend . He didn't know he had a sister until an adoption agency put it in a letter . Fran Kavanagh, 49, was also sent a letter and tracked brother online . Pair were adopted separately from St Patrick's Home in Dublin as babies . They didn't realise they had been brought up a few streets from each other . Fran, who lives in London, flew to Dublin to meet radio presenter brother . The mother-of-two said: 'To meet Niall after all these years is wonderful'