Investigators at Ireland’s notorious mother and baby house of horrors have made a grim find, excavating what they now confirm to be part of a long-suspected burial ground where up to 800 babies are feared to lie.
The excavation team, which started its painstaking work in July, revealed that it has uncovered compelling evidence of a graveyard on the western edge of the former Tuam institution in County Galway – the site that shook the world a decade ago.
The home at Tuam first attracted international awareness in 2014, when local historian Catherine Corless discovered 796 death certificates for babies and young children who died there, yet encountered no burial records at all.
Now, the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT), has unleashed its fourth update – and the findings are as harrowing as they are historic.
Officials reported that they had found ‘graves of child or infant size’ in the area currently being excavated under a large tent.
The site aligns precisely with a section marked ‘burial ground’ on old site maps.
In its statement, ODAIT said: ‘Despite these historical references, there were no surface or ground level indications of the potential for a burial ground at this location prior to excavation.
‘The presence of burials at this location has now been confirmed.
‘The layout and size of the graves is consistent evidence that, at this part of the site, there is a burial ground from the time of the operation of the mother-and-baby institution.’
The institution, run by the Bon Secours Sisters on behalf of Galway County Council, was open from 1925 until its closure in 1961.
In addition to the seven sets of human remains revealed last month, four more sets are included in the most recent discoveries.
According to ODAIT, ‘initial assessments’ suggest all eleven sets are infants and that each had been buried in coffins. Further analysis is underway.
Both manual and mechanical excavation work is still being done beneath the tent.
The recently established burial area lies approximately 100 metres from the notorious subterranean chambers where a government inquiry discovered ‘significant quantities’ of remains in 2017.
Leading the operation is Director of Authorised Intervention Daniel MacSweeney, a veteran of International Committee of the Red Cross missions to recover missing people.
Speaking to RTÉ after the confirmation of infant remains, he said the discovery was ‘very important.’
MacSweeney announced that 160 people have already come forward to give DNA samples in hopes of identifying lost relatives.
He urged more to do the same, adding: ‘I know from experience that sometimes the discovery of remains can be a catalyst for people to come forward.’
The Bon Secours Sisters, who previously admitted that children were ‘buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way’ and issued an apology, have contributed £2.14 million to the excavation costs.
Galway County Council, which also apologised in 2021 for ‘failing mothers and children,’ has supported the operation as well.
The immense excavation is anticipated to continue until 2027, with years of follow-up work to follow – meaning the quest to finally give these children dignity, names, and a resting place is far from over.
There are undoubtedly more similar locations around Ireland, and the government have been attempting to conceal them for years.
This is just terrible, and there are just no words to justify what happened to these infants and children.
Religion has a lot to answer for, but for some reason, some people still revel in it, but of course, these young girls didn’t get pregnant by themselves – it wasn’t the immaculate conception, but they were treated extremely harshly along with their babies, who were usually sold to wealthy American’s or shipped overseas and treated even more harshly – what happened to them would make your heart burn with despair.
The atrocities perpetrated by the good old Irish nuns are endless. They did not even express remorse or an apology for their actions, and some mother and baby units were still operating up until the 1990s, where they locked women up for having a baby in the name of the Catholic Church. Many of these nuns were sadistic devils who took babies away from their mothers – shame on them all!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 