Preliminary work has started for the excavation of the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway, with main efforts beginning mid-July. This follows concerns raised in 2014 about the burial of nearly 800 infants who died there between 1925 and 1961. Access to a memorial garden and playground in the Dublin Road estate is restricted.
For survivors like Peter Mulryan, seeking answers about his sister, this is a step toward closure.
A 2017 investigation confirmed human remains near a former sewage facility, following historian Catherine Corless’s research, which found no burial records for 796 children.
Catherine Corless’s work revealed 798 children died at the Tuam home for unmarried mothers, with only two buried in a nearby cemetery, the rest presumed interred at the site. She stated: “I am very relieved. It’s been a long, long journey. Not knowing what’s going to happen, if it’s just going to fall apart or if it’s really going to happen.”
The findings exposed mid-20th century Ireland’s harsh Catholic-driven treatment of illegitimate children and their mothers. A forensic excavation, led by Daniel MacSweeney, aims to identify remains via DNA and provide dignified reburials.
This offers hope to people like Annette McKay, whose mother, Margaret O’Connor, gave birth in 1942 after being raped at just 17 years old. Her daughter, Mary Margaret, died at six months. Annette recalls her mother’s account: “She was pegging washing out and a nun came up behind her and said ’the child of your sin is dead’.”
Annette hopes to rebury her sister’s remains with her mother, saying: “I don’t care if it’s a thimbleful, as they tell me there wouldn’t be much remains left; at six months old, it’s mainly cartilage more than bone. I don’t care if it’s a thimbleful for me to be able to pop Mary Margaret with Maggie. That’s fitting.”
For Annette, 71, Tuam reflects a dark era. She said: “We locked up victims of rape, we locked up victims of incest, we locked up victims of violence, we put them in laundries, we took their children, and we just handed them over to the church to do what they wanted.”
“My mother worked heavily pregnant, cleaning floors and a nun passing kicked my mother in the stomach. And when that place is opened, their dirty, ugly, secret, it isn’t a secret anymore. It’s out there. And we need to know from that dirty, ugly place what happened there. So first and foremost, we want answers to that place.”
In 2021, Ireland’s government apologized after an inquiry found 9,000 children died in 18 mother and baby homes. Irish PM Micheál Martin said: “We had a completely warped attitude to sexuality and intimacy, and young mothers and their sons and daughters were forced to pay a terrible price for that dysfunction.” The Sisters of Bon Secours, who ran the home, offered “profound apologies” for the “disrespectful” burials and compensation.
The excavation, potentially lasting two years, continues as Tuam grapples with its past. Corless reflected: “I’m still trying to figure that out. I mean, this was a nursing congregation. The church preached to look after the vulnerable, the old and the orphaned, but they never included illegitimate children for some reason or another in their own psyche.”
“I’ll never, ever, understand how they could do that to little babies, little toddlers. Beautiful little vulnerable children.”
As the Tuam excavation unfolds, it offers a chance for truth, healing, and justice for the nearly 800 children lost to history, illuminating a painful chapter of Ireland’s past.
This article was originally published by SnD Media News.
