page_title: Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The old workhouse in 1918, Tuam, Co. Galway, Ireland
context_page_description: The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home that operated between 1925 and 1961 in the town of Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, was a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children. The Home was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Roman Catholic nuns, that also operated the Grove Hospital in the town. Unwed pregnant women were sent to the Home to give birth.
  In 2012, the Health Service Executive raised concerns that up to 1,000 children had been sent from the Home, for the purpose of illegal adoptions in the United States, without their mothers' consent.
  Separately in 2012, a local amateur historian, Catherine Corless, published an article documenting the history of the home before she uncovered the names of the children who died in the home the following year. In 2014, Anna Corrigan uncovered the inspection reports of the home, which noted that the most commonly recorded causes of death among the infants were congenital debilities, infectious diseases and malnutrition. Corless' research led her to conclude that almost all had been buried in an unmarked and unregistered site at the Home, and the article claimed that there was a high death rate of residents.
context_section_description: Between 1925 and 1961 in Tuam, a town in County Galway, the Bon Secours Sisters ran "The Home", an institution where thousands of unmarried pregnant women gave birth. Previously, it had been a workhouse and military barracks.
caption: The old workhouse, on the Athenry Road, 1918.