Excavations at site of home for unmarried mothers and their children, where it is alleged up to 800 children died, uncover human remains

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This article is more than 2 years old

A mass grave containing the remains of babies and children has been discovered at a former Catholic care home in Ireland where it has been alleged up to 800 died, government-appointed investigators said on Friday.

Excavations at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, have uncovered an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains”, the judge-led mother and baby homes commission said.



The commission said analysis of selected remains revealed ages of the deceased ranged from 35 weeks to three years old. It found that the dead had been mostly buried in the 1950s, when the facility was one of more than a dozen in Ireland offering shelter to orphans, unmarried mothers and their children. The Tuam home closed in 1961.

Tell us the truth about the children in Galway's mass graves | Emer O'Toole Read more

The home, run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic religious order of nuns, received unmarried pregnant women to give birth. The women were separated from their children, who remained elsewhere in the home, raised by nuns, until they could be adopted.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The shrine erected in memory of the up to 800 children allegedly buried at the site of the former home. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

The discovery confirms decades of suspicions that the vast majority of children who died at the home were interred on the site in unmarked graves, a common practice at such Catholic-run facilities amid high child mortality rates in early 20th-century Ireland.



The Irish government in 2014 formed the commission following the work of a local Tuam historian, Catherine Corless, who found death certificates for nearly 800 children who were residents at the facility but burial records for only two.



“Everything pointed to this area being a mass grave,” Corless previously told the Guardian. She recalled how boys playing in the field had reported seeing a pile of bones in a hidden underground chamber there in the mid-1970s.

The government’s commissioner for children, Katherine Zappone, said the findings were “sad and disturbing” and promised that the children’s families would be consulted on providing proper burials and other memorials.

“We will honour their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately,” Zappone said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Catherine Corless. Photograph: Patrick Bolger/Patrick Bolger Photogrraphy

Under the Freedom of Information Act, Corless requested Galway county council’s records on the home from 1925 to 1961. She was refused.

But she was given documents from the 1970s, including an official map of the present-day estate the council built on the site.

“They obviously didn’t see the importance,” said Corless. “There is an area across the map marked ‘burial ground’,” she says. “First, the houses were built, around that area. Finally a playground was built on part of the burial ground itself.”

The mystery of the missing remains of the Tuam babies Read more

Minutes from a Tuam council meeting call for “due care and sensitivity” when building the playground because of the “children’s burial ground and adjoining burial ground”, Corless said. “The playground is unnaturally big, it’s as big as the town playground.”</s>A mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children has been discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland, government-appointed investigators announced Friday in a finding that confirmed a local historian's efforts to trace the fates of 800 children who perished at the facility.

The judge-led Mother and Baby Homes Commission announced Friday that excavations at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, had found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing "significant quantities of human remains."

The commission said DNA analysis of selected remains confirmed the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks to 3 years old and were buried chiefly in the 1950s, when the facility was one of more than a dozen in Ireland offering shelter to orphans, unwed mothers and their children. The Tuam home closed in 1961.

The announcement confirms decades of suspicions that the vast majority of children who died at the home were interred on the site in unmarked graves, a relatively common practice at such Catholic-run facilities amid high child mortality rates in early 20th century Ireland.

The government in 2014 formed the investigation following the work of a local Tuam historian, Catherine Corless, who found death certificates for nearly 800 children who were residents at the facility — but a burial record for only one child.

"Everything pointed to this area being a mass grave," said Corless, who recalled how local boys playing in the field had reported seeing a pile of bones in a hidden underground chamber there in the mid-1970s.

The government's commissioner for children, Katherine Zappone, said Friday's findings were "sad and disturbing," and pledged that the children's descendants would be consulted on providing proper burials and other memorials.

"We will honor their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately," Zappone said.</s>In a startling find, investigators from Ireland have confirmed the discovery of a mass grave that they say contain remains of “hundreds” of babies and young children.

According to ABC News, the mass grave was found at a site that was home to a former Catholic orphanage. The discovery was made by government-appointed investigators following the efforts of local historian Catherine Corless, who launched an investigation to trace the fates of more than 800 children who she believed perished at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home located in Tuam, Galway County.

The investigation was spearheaded by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission, which commenced excavating the site of the former orphanage starting in November of last year. After more than three months of careful excavations, the Commission announced that they have come across conclusive evidence that hundreds of children were buried over the course of several decades at the orphanage. The mass grave was found within an underground structure that was divided into 20 chambers. Each of these chambers had “significant quantities of human remains,” authorities confirmed.

Meanwhile, DNA analysis of several remains found from the mass grave revealed that the ages of the dead children ranged from infants as young as 35-weeks-old and toddlers of ages up to 3-years-old. Officials also estimated that most of the children were buried in the mass grave back in the 1950s. Back then, the orphanage offered shelter to orphans and unwed mothers and their children. While several people had suspected that a large number of children have died at the orphanage with most of them interred in unmarked graves, no one had conclusive evidence of this happening. According to the ABC News report, back in the 50s, the practice of disposing of the bodies of orphans at Catholic-run facilities was fairly common.

According to Catherine Corless, she became interested in the fates of hundreds of faceless children whose death certificates she tracked down. Upon further investigation, she could only find the burial record for one child. Following her efforts, in 2014, the government okayed a full-fledged investigation to find out what happened at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home six decades ago. Corless said that all the evidence suggested the presence of a mass grave near the plot of land near the orphanage. She also revealed that back in the 70s, several children playing in the area had reported the discovery of a pile of bones in an underground chamber. However, no further investigation was carried out by authorities back then.

Meanwhile, the discovery of the mass grave in Ireland has been described as “sad and disturbing” by Ireland’s commissioner for children, Katherine Zappone. She added that all efforts to identify the remains and to contact the descendants of the children would be made so that they could be provided proper burials.

“We will honor their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately,” Zappone said.

According to investigators, initial impressions are that several of the bodies were placed in underground chambers that were used as septic tanks. However, the tanks were not used after 1937, when the orphanage was connected to a modern water supply and waste disposal network. Indications are that workers modified the old septic tank, filled it with rubble.

An investigation is also underway to find the identities of the people who were behind the disposal of human remains in such a way. The Bon Secours Sisters order of nuns that ran the orphanage until its closure issued a statement in which it clarified that all records pertaining to the closed facility were given to the government back in 1961. They, however, pledged full co-operation with the ongoing investigation. Corless wasn’t happy with the response and said that the organization should take responsibility for what happened at a facility that was once under their care.</s>DUBLIN — A mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children has been discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland, government-appointed investigators announced Friday in a finding that offered the first conclusive proof following a historian's efforts to trace the fates of nearly 800 children who perished there.

The judge-led Mother and Baby Homes Commission said excavations since November at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, had found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing "significant quantities of human remains."

The commission said DNA analysis of selected remains confirmed the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks to 3 years old and were buried chiefly in the 1950s, when the overcrowded facility was one of more than a dozen in Ireland offering shelter to orphans, unwed mothers and their children. The Tuam home closed in 1961.

Friday's findings provided the first proof after decades of suspicions that the vast majority of children who died at the home had been interred on the site in unmarked graves. That was a common, but ill-documented practice at such Catholic-run facilities amid high child mortality rates in early 20th century Ireland.

The government in 2014 formed the investigation after a local Tuam historian, Catherine Corless, tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who had died as residents of the facility — but could find a burial record for only one child.

"Everything pointed to this area being a mass grave," said Corless, who recalled how local boys playing in the field had reported seeing a pile of bones in a hidden underground chamber there in the mid-1970s.

The government's commissioner for children, Katherine Zappone, said Friday's findings were "sad and disturbing." She pledged that the children's descendants would be consulted on providing proper burials and other memorials.

"We will honor their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately," Zappone said.

The report found that the dead children may have been placed in underground chambers originally used to hold sewage. Corless said she found records stating that the sewage systems were used until 1937, when the home was connected to a modern water supply.

A decommissioned septic tank had been "filled with rubble and debris and then covered with top soil" and did not appear to contain remains, the report said. But excavators found children's remains inside a neighboring connected structure that may have been used to contain sewage or waste water.

The commission's finding that most of the remains date to the 1950s corroborates Corless' collection of death certificates. It also dispels a popular argument that bones seen at the site might predate the orphanage's opening, when the building was a workhouse for the adult poor, or even be from people who died in the mid-19th century Great Famine.

Labour Party lawmaker Joan Burton said the Tuam orphanage's dead may have been interred "without normal funeral rights, and maybe even without their wider families having been made aware." She called on the Catholic Church to provide more assistance to investigators.

The investigators, who are examining the treatment of children at a long-closed network of 14 Mother and Baby Homes, said they still were trying to identify "who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way."

The Bon Secours Sisters order of nuns, which ran the home until its closure, said in a statement that all its records, including of potential burials, had been handed to state authorities in 1961. It pledged to cooperate with the continuing investigation.

Corless criticized the Bon Secours response as "the usual maddening nonsense. They must apologize and take responsibility for what happened there."

She called on the nuns to promise explicitly to help the state organize proper marked burial places for every dead child once each set of remains could be identified.

"That's the least that can be done for them at this late stage," she said.</s>A mass grave containing the remains of babies and children has been discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland where it has been alleged up to 800 died, government-appointed investigators said on Friday.

Excavations at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, have uncovered an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains”, the judge-led mother and baby homes commission said. 



The commission said DNA analysis of selected remains revealed ages of the deceased ranged from 35 weeks to three years old. It found that the dead had been mostly buried in the 1950s, when the facility was one of more than a dozen in Ireland offering shelter to orphans, unwed mothers and their children. The Tuam home closed in 1961.

The home, run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic religious order of nuns, received unmarried pregnant women to give birth. The women were separated from their children, who remained separately in the home, raised by nuns, until they could be adopted.

The discovery confirms decades of suspicions that the vast majority of children who died at the home were interred on the site in unmarked graves, a common practice at such Catholic-run facilities amid high child mortality rates in early 20th-century Ireland.



The government in 2014 formed the commission following the work of a local Tuam historian, Catherine Corless, who found death certificates for nearly 800 children who were residents at the facility but burial records for only two.



“Everything pointed to this area being a mass grave,” Corless previously told the Guardian, who recalled how boys playing in the field had reported seeing a pile of bones in a hidden underground chamber there in the mid-1970s.

The government’s commissioner for children, Katherine Zappone, said the findings were “sad and disturbing” and pledged that the children’s families would be consulted on providing proper burials and other memorials.

“We will honour their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately,” Zappone said.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, Corless requested Galway county council’s records on St Mary’s from 1925 to 1961. She was refused.

But she was given documents from the 1970s, including an official map of the present day estate the council built on the site.

“They obviously didn’t see the importance,” said Corless. “There is an area across the map marked ‘Burial Ground’,” she says. “First, the houses were built, around that area. Finally a playground was built on part of the burial ground itself.”

Minutes from a Tuam council meeting call for “due care and sensitivity” when building the playground because of the “children’s burial ground and adjoining burial ground,” Corless said. “The playground is unnaturally big, it’s as big as the town playground.”</s>A mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children has been discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland, government-appointed investigators announced Friday in a finding that offered the first conclusive proof following a historian’s efforts to trace the fates of nearly 800 children who perished there.

The judge-led Mother and Baby Homes Commission said excavations since November at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, had found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains.”</s>A mass grave with children is found close by a former Irish orphanage where for many years has been suspected unmarked graves.

A government commission confirmed Friday the conclusions of a local historian who in 2014 found the death certificates of nearly 800 children who died in the Catholic orphanage in Tuam in Galway in the period 1925-1961.

Excavations in the area from November to January have revealed an underground structure that is divided into 20 chambers with “significant amounts of human remains.”

DNA analysis of some of the remains shows that the age of the dead children was from 35 weeks to three years and that they were buried while the orphanage was in business from 1925 until it was closed in 1961.</s>DUBLIN — Forensics experts say they have found a mass grave for young children at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland where suspicions of unrecorded, unmarked burials have lingered for decades.

Friday’s announcement by the government-appointed Mother and Baby Homes Commission confirms a 2014 investigation by a local historian who found death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam, County Galway, from its opening in 1925 to its 1961 closure.

The commission says excavations at the site from November to January found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains.”

It says DNA analysis of selected remains confirmed the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks to 3 years old and were buried when the orphanage was operating.

The history of unwed mothers forced into hard labor is a well-documented dark chapter in Irish history.

For nearly four decades, thousands of these “fallen women” toiled at the place in Tuam, called simply, “the Home,” to atone for having out-of-wedlock children.

While many of the women eventually left “the Home” after serving their time, many of their children apparently were not so fortunate.</s>A statue of the Virgin Mary adorns the site of a mass grave for children who died in the Tuam mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. A mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children has been discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland, government-appointed investigators announced Friday in a finding that offered the first conclusive proof following a historian's efforts to trace the fates of nearly 800 children who perished there.

Start the conversation, or Read more at CBC News.</s>DUBLIN — Forensics experts say they have found a mass grave for young children at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland where suspicions of unrecorded, unmarked burials have lingered for decades.

Friday’s announcement by the government-appointed Mother and Baby Homes Commission confirms a 2014 investigation by a local historian who found death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam, County Galway, from its opening in 1925 to its 1961 closure.

The commission says excavations at the site from November to January found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains.”

It says DNA analysis of selected remains confirmed the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks to 3 years old and were buried when the orphanage was operating.
A mass grave is discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Tuam, Ireland, containing “significant quantities of human remains”, all of them children. It is alleged over 800 children died at this orphanage and most were buried in the 1950s.