A forensic team is finally digging up an old property in Ireland, trying to find the remains of nearly 800 babies and children.
This used to be a so-called “mother and baby” home in Tuam, County Galway. It shut down more than 60 years ago, but what happened there is still haunting people today.
A local historian, Catherine Corless, spent years researching it. She found out that between 1925 and 1961, 798 children had died at that place. Most of them were never given a proper burial.
Many were thrown into what used to be a septic tank
Instead of being laid to rest in a cemetery, most of the kids were believed to have been dumped into an old sewage tank behind the home.
People started calling it “the pit.” Out of all those children, only two had official graves in a nearby cemetery. The rest were likely buried there, with no coffins or markers of any kind.
The truth was ignored for a long time
Back in 1975, two boys came across the tank. They were only 12, and it was reportedly filled with bones.
But at the time, people brushed it off. They thought the bones were just from the famine back in the 1840s and didn’t look into it.
Catherine Corless refused to let this be forgotten
Everything changed in 2014 when Corless went public with her findings. Her research shook not just Ireland, but people around the world.
She uncovered how deeply rooted the shame around “illegitimate” children was and how the Church often refused to baptize them or give them Christian burials.
“I’m feeling very relieved,” Corless told Sky News before the dig began.
“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 nuns ran the place like a hidden world
The Tuam home was run by Catholic nuns. It took in unmarried pregnant women, who were often treated with shame just for having a baby out of wedlock.
Ireland had at least ten places like this. Around 35,000 women passed through them over the years. A lot of the time, their babies were taken away or put up for adoption, sometimes without the mother’s choice.
What the records showed was horrifying
The death records at Tuam showed many kids died from things like measles, TB, and malnutrition. Those diseases were common back then, but the numbers were still shocking.
In 2021, a government inquiry found that around 9,000 children had died in 18 homes just like Tuam. The report described it as an “appalling level of infant mortality.”
The state finally said sorry
After the report came out, the Irish government made an official apology.
Taoiseach Micheal 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 Church admitted the burials were wrong
The Sisters of Bon Secours were the religious order that ran the Tuam home. They released a statement too, offering their “profound apologies” and compensation.
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They also admitted that the way the children were buried was “disrespectful and unacceptable.”
Corless questioned the Church’s silence
Corless has been outspoken about the Church’s role in all of this.
“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 never, ever understand how they could do that to little babies, little toddlers. Beautiful little vulnerable children.”
A small hope for dignity at last
Now, the goal is to try and identify as many of the remains as possible using DNA.
Each child deserves a name, a resting place, and a proper goodbye.
