Preparatory work begins ahead of Tuam mother and baby home mass grave excavation in Co. Galway

[IwantToRetire]

The preparatory phase, which will last around four weeks, comes ahead of the full-scale excavation of the site to try to identify the remains of infants who died at the home between 1925 and 1961.

In 2014, research led by local historian Catherine Corless indicated that 796 babies and young children were buried in a sewage system at the Co Galway institution across that time period.

The St Mary’s home for unmarried mothers and their children was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns.In 2021, Taoiseach Micheal Martin delivered an apology on behalf of the state for the treatment of women and children who were housed in mother and baby homes across Ireland.

The Bon Secours Sisters also offered a “profound apology” after acknowledging the order had “failed to protect the inherent dignity” of women and children in the Tuam home.

One of the main responsibilities will be to ensure any remains that are uncovered are re-interred in a respectful and appropriate way.

Full article https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2025-06-16/mass-grave-excavation-at-mother-and-baby-home-to-begin

Thank goodness this is happening finally.

At last. Those poor families.

I was shocked to read this as I thought it had already been done. My heart goes out to all those victims and families.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for sharing. This is a disgraceful part of Irish history

It might be more accurate to call the burials a 'communal grave' rather than a 'mass grave', 'mass grave' implies that '800 babies were dumped in a septic tank', as the headlines which went around the world claim.

Over the space of 36 years or so, unused underground chambers that were part of original 19th century sewage system, i.e. long before the Mother and Baby home was there, were used to inter the bodies of the poor little children who didn't survive.

The area is known to have many burial sites dating back centuries in several places. It was a Workhouse, and then a British military barracks, then an Irish military barracks, before it became a Mother and Baby home, and there were burial plots associated with these; I think the nuns were also buried in a communal grave. Unfortunately not all of the sites were marked on maps, and many of them were built over decades ago.

A memorial garden was built over the area where the babies are believed to be buried.

It will take years to complete the task, and it's very unlikely that identification will be possible in most cases.

There will be police oversight to see if there is any evidence that the children died from anything other than the natural causes - such as respiratory infections and gastro-enteritis - which are recorded on the children's death certificates.

I am not sure that "families" come into this.

Many if not all of the women ended up in institutes like this because their families would not support them once they knew a daughter was pregnant.

It is shocking what these women endured, and tragic that so many babies died.

And a horrible reminder that whatever country, whatever religion, women always pay the price. And of course the man or men involved just walk off untouched, untainted and more than likely able to abuse other women with no regard for the consequences for them.

Not to detract from this specific case and the long over due attempt to go some way to put right what went wrong, but saw this today as well.

Protesters refuse to forgive Church for Franco-era abuse of ‘fallen women’
When representatives of the Spanish Conference of Religious stood to request forgiveness, survivors began chanting ‘Truth, justice, reparation’ and ‘Neither forgive nor forget’.
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/protesters-refuse-to-forgive-church-for-franco-era-abuse-of-fallen-women/

That’s really interesting thank you. Good on those Spanish women.

Women raped in workhouses sent to mother and baby homes to give birth

“I was speaking to a son whose mother was put into a workhouse by her strict parents.

“While there she was sexually abused by one of the workers and then was subsequently moved to a mother and baby institution.”

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/women-raped-in-workhouses-sent-to-mother-and-baby-homes-to-give-birth/a220939223.html

Can be read at https://archive.is/EIp19

That is not going to be the story of anyone now alive in R o I since the workhouses had closed by 1920. I don't know how long they continued to function in NI.

From what I understand having read Catherine Corless's book, the children were indeed more or less dumped. Distressing detail, to give a bit of a trigger warning, the forensic teams that initally went in there found that it is going to be incredibly difficult to separate one child from another, as they were not buried, but piled multiple children deep and have decayed into each other. The children ranged from very small babies to as I remember 10 or so years old.

It won't be possible at this stage to tell much as it will be a case of trying to group bones and then identify, there won't be much forensic information left beyond this. However it's also rather grim to read the dates of deaths. You'd expect waves as illnesses etc passed through the population in those decades, and it is known that malnourishment, failure to thrive and neglect was picked up by inspectors, reported, and buried as too inconvenient to the establishment of the time, so very vulnerable children. But you can also see that depending who was in charge, the death rate varied hugely. There are periods under one person where very few died at all, and then others under other people in charge when several children died per day.

Sorry, no it's the Alison O'Reilly 2018 book that has the records in the appendix.

Sorry IWTR, I missed this.

The families who have pushed and pushed for this are in most cases the children of those women, often from later life and/or who had siblings who died at Tuam. Much as it was siblings and children of the child immigrants sent to Australia who brought that scandal to light.

A bill to establish a redress scheme for victims of mother and baby homes has been criticised by a survivor who says it excludes "thousands" of women and children who suffered.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crl0rkr2r40o
(june 2025)

Not forgetting that many of the mother and baby homes in the UK, well at least England, were responsible for the forced adoption of babies as part of some mad notion that young white babies needed to be shipped to various parts of the British Empire (Australia, Canada, South Africa) to help the colonial project maintain its grip on various countries. Although the treatement of the babies and children, often in Christian run orphanages was appalling.
https://www.childmigrantstrust.org/child-migration-history

The last mother and baby home closed in 1990. This most definitely still affects people alive today unfortunately.

What I meant was that no baby has been born to anyone as a result of rape in a workhouse in Ireland since 1920.

I know 2 women who chose to go into convent-run homes in Ireland to give birth, one in the 1970s, one in the 1990s, after which they voluntarily gave up babies for adoption, one within their own family, one outside.

They saw it as a more supportive option than living alone during their late pregnancy. Both returned to their jobs and lives afterwards.

Well that’s the story for those two women and that’s clearly positive for them happily.
But it was not for many others such as my mother for whom this was an absolutely devastating experience where she had no agency and was left with deep deep shame.

I'm very sorry your mother had such a bad experience. Did she get any support or help later in life?

Thank you. No, she didn’t unfortunately.

I'm glad this will finally be properly investigated and those poor children laid to rest with dignity.

As someone from a vaguely Catholic background, I can just never wrap my head around how the nuns justified what they did. I have family members who don't have a good word to say about some of the Orders they had experience of so it doesn't surprise me, but still. How could they preach God's love and behave so abominably to both the women and their children?

I am so sorry to hear about your mother. And added to which taking on the shame which was others projecting their horrible attitudes towards her.

I hope later on with having your she was able to shake off some of that.

The damage people do in the name of religion or social attitudes.

Yes, but I think the pp’s point was that it was never a case of evil nuns and clergy snatching pregnant girls from the bosom of a loving family — in earlier times, it was generally their parents or older siblings who brought them to the laundries or mother and baby homes. I know someone very cool, now in her 70s, who discovered she was pregnant in her late teens after her boyfriend had gone to sea and couldn’t be contacted, and who would have been sent to a mother and baby home by her parents if a family friend in Dublin hadn’t offered to let her live with her during the pregnancy.

And yes to @DeanElderberry‘s point— in the later years of the homes certainly it was sometimes the best way to access social care, a place to give birth, help with job hunting or housing afterwards etc, and some women certainly went there willingly, or at least because the other options were less appealing, and were not coerced into relinquishing their children.

Very distressing to listen to, but shows how the wonderful presistence of one woman led to this despicable cover up being exposed.

And some of the "ordinary" people who help her find the evidence that made the authorities not able to shrug it off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct7wzt