Excavation began at the site of a closed church-run institution in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, where the remains of as many as 800 infants and young children are thought to be buried. The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, run by Catholic nuns until it closed in 1961, is now being investigated as part of the project to expose Ireland’s religious institutions’ dark history.
This much-hyped excavation seeks to reveal the truth behind a mass grave discovered inside the property. It is just one of numerous homes throughout Ireland to which unmarried pregnant women were dispatched, frequently coerced into surrendering their infants, during most of the 20th century.
The research into Tuam accelerated in 2014, when historian Catherine Corless announced she had found death certificates for almost 800 children who passed away at the home between the 1920s and 1961—but one record of an official burial. In the wake of this announcement, a mass grave with human remains was unearthed inside an underground sewage tank on the property. The children died between 35 weeks gestation and 3 years.
The top official in charge of exhumation, Daniel MacSweeney, has confirmed that survivors and families of the victims will be able to witness the excavation progress in the near future. The exhumations will be subjected to forensic examination. Those that are identified will be returned to their families, and unidentified remains will be buried with dignity following religious traditions.
At 18 such homes in Ireland, some 9,000 children are estimated to have died including many from conditions that were preventable, such as respiratory infections and gastroenteritis.
One of the women, Annette McKay, whose sister is said to be buried at the Tuam site, told Sky News her story. Her mother, Margaret ‘Maggie’ O’Connor, had given birth to a daughter, Mary Margaret, at the home after surviving a rape.
“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,” McKay said, expressing her desire to reclaim even the smallest trace of her sibling.
The Tuam excavation is a significant moment in Ireland’s reckoning with a painful chapter of its history, one marked by institutional neglect, social stigma, and unacknowledged grief.