Tuam babies' burial site to be sealed off as mass grave exhumation begins in June
In an email sent Friday evening to the Tuam Babies Family Group, which includes many relatives of those buried at the site, the Director of the Intervention said his team is 'still on track to begin the excavation of the site in the second half of June' — although a start date has not yet been confirmed.
Daniel MacSweeney who was appointed to oversee the exhumation two years ago, explained that 'Once works start, the entire site will be forensically sealed. We will erect 2.4-meter hoarding and put in place 24-hour security monitoring'.
He continued 'It is expected that the works on the site may take up to 24 months to complete.
'During this time, the Memorial Garden will not be accessible. If you would like to visit the Memorial Garden, you should try to do so before mid-June.'
The exhumation follows 11 years of public pressure after local historian Catherine Corless uncovered the names of 796 children believed to be buried on the grounds of the former mother and baby home.
The institution, which primarily housed unmarried mothers, was run by the Bons Secours nuns on behalf of Galway County Council.
It operated between 1925 and 1961. After the nuns sold the land and left Tuam, the children who died there were left buried on the property.
A test excavation carried out in October 2016 and January 2017 revealed a "significant quantity of human remains" — belonging to babies aged between 35 foetal weeks and 2 to 3 years.
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The remains were found dumped in 18 of 20 chambers of a disused sewage tank. This discovery sparked international outrage and was reported across major global news outlets.
Tuam Mother and Baby home survivor Carmel Larkin, aged 70 attends to flowers left at the Virgin Mary shrine as a vigil is held at the Tuam Mother and Baby home mass burial site on August 25, 2019 in Tuam, Ireland. Picture:The intervention has come after more than a decade of campaigning from families of children who died there as well as Ms Corless.
Mr MacSweeney told families and survivors: 'I am writing to update you, the people most impacted by the former Mother and Baby institution in Tuam, about the intervention.'
He said this is 'the first step towards restoring dignity in death to those inappropriately buried at the site. We will confirm the exact date very soon.'
Family members of the children who died in Tuam as well as survivors will be invited to the first perimeter of the forensically sealed site on July 8.
Mr MacSweeney explained that 'additional dates will be added if needs be.'
A family liaison officer, Paula Kennedy has been appointed to support families with details for the visits.
He continued: 'I also want to let you know that we have begun further engagement with the Tuam Community and in particular the residents near the estate adjoining the Memorial Garden.
'We will host an information evening on 6th June. Most residents have received further information relating to the site works and the Information Evening.'
Anna Corrigan, who was at the heart of the original exposure of the Tuam babies' burial scandal alongside Catherine Corless, said: 'It is almost surreal that this is happening. It is a day we thought would never arrive — and now it's happening next month.
'It is a small light at the end of the tunnel, I hope we find all of the children and that the mothers and my own mother included, Bridget Dolan, will be given some form of justice for what was perpetrated on them and the children will have some dignity in death.
'We still have to wait to see what is uncovered and how many children will be found, how many will be identified, or will we be left with lingering questions when this is all over.'
Further information can be found on www.odait.ie.
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Irish Times
15-07-2025
- Irish Times
Tuam is a microcosm for Ireland's history of discarded bones
Ireland often seems surreal. But it is also, if I may be permitted to coin a word, subreal. We share the island, not just with what is above ground but what it under it. Our reality is not just experienced – it is exhumed. As Seamus Heaney put it in Bogland, it keeps 'striking/ Inwards and downwards,/ Every layer they strip/Seems camped on before'. The subsoil of the grounds of the former Bons Secours Mother and Baby home in Tuam is described as a 'yellow-grey silty gritty layer'. And it is being stripped now , down to where, between 1925 and 1961, perhaps 796 tiny human beings were stuffed in a disused sewage system. This non-resting place is, as the technical report published in 2017 has it, 'an elongated structure, comprising 20 chambers, with juvenile human remains identified in 17 of those chambers'. These chambers of horror are 'deep and narrow'. Indeed – this is a kind of reality that has been buried very deep and confined to a very narrow strip of Irish consciousness. It is weirdly apt that Tuam in its original form is Tuaim, a tumulus or burial mound. It has become a microcosm for all that has been interred with Irish history's discarded bones. In the grounds of the home, there are many layers of yellow-grey oblivion. There have been, in modern times, three distinct cycles of shameful burial and exhumation just in this small patch of Irish earth. READ MORE Family members of children believed to be buried at the former mother and baby institution in Tuam have spoken to the media ahead of the excavation of the site Before it was the Mother and Baby home, the complex was the Tuam workhouse. It opened in 1846, which meant that it was immediately overwhelmed by desperate victims of the Great Famine who died, not just of disease and hunger, but as Eavan Boland put it in her poem Quarantine, 'Of the toxins of a whole history.' They were initially buried just beside the workhouse, until the authorities objected that the 'burying ground ... is in such a state as to be injurious to the health of the occupiers of premises in ... the entire town of Tuam'. [ Tuam families can see 'light at the end of a very long tunnel' Opens in new window ] In 2012, during works on the town water scheme, 18 pits containing 48 bodies of famine victims were uncovered. It seems probable that many more bodies lie in and around the grounds. Interestingly, even in the midst of that unspeakable catastrophe, these people had at least been buried in coffins – a dignity not afforded to the children who later died in the care of the nuns. The second episode of burial and exhumation on this same patch of land occurred during and immediately after the Civil War. Between its periods as a workhouse and a Mother and Baby home, the Tuam complex had another brief life that also involved hidden burials. It was occupied during the Civil War by the Free State Army. In March 1923, six anti-Treaty prisoners were executed in the workhouse and buried in the grounds. In May, two more prisoners suffered the same fate. These bodies were exhumed and reburied in 1924. It again seems interesting that these dead men were given a memorial on the site: there is a commemorative plaque on the only preserved section of the wall of the Mother and Baby home. The famine and the Troubles at least occupied enough space in official memory for coffins and commemorations to be afforded to their victims. The children who died in the Mother and Baby home were not part of history until the extraordinary Catherine Corless made them so – thus they got neither coffins nor memorials. The operation to identify so many now-jumbled bones of infants using DNA analysis and other cutting-edge techniques will, if successful, set a new benchmark for the rescue of the unwanted dead from the contempt of silence and anonymity What makes the forensic excavation that began in Tuam yesterday even stranger is that it fuses an old Ireland with a new. It is both deeply atavistic and startlingly innovative. It is something that seems never to have happened before in human history. There have been thousands of archaeological explorations of tombs and burial chambers. There have been numerous grim excavations of bodies dumped in mass graves after massacres or battles. (Daniel MacSweeney, who is heading the Tuam operation, gained his expertise in the Lebanon and the Caucasus. Oran Finegan, its leading forensic scientist, worked on 'large-scale post conflict identification programmes' in the Balkans and Cyprus.) There are also many cases of babies and other inmates being buried in unmarked or poorly recorded graves on the grounds of institutions – at, for example, the Smyllum Park boarding home in Scotland , the Haut de la Garenne boarding home on Jersey , the Ballarat Orphanage in Australia, and the Duplessis Orphans' home in Canada . Here in Ireland, we had the hideous exhumation in 1993 of the graves of women buried at the High Park Magdalene home in Dublin – so that the nuns could sell the land for property development. But the situation of the remains in Tuam – neither a grave nor a tomb – has, according to the technical group, 'no national or international comparisons that the group is aware of'. And the operation to identify so many now-jumbled bones of infants using DNA analysis and other cutting-edge techniques will, if successful, set a new benchmark for the rescue of the unwanted dead from the contempt of silence and anonymity. This is making history in a double sense – doing something that has never been done before while simultaneously reshaping a country's understanding of its own recent past. [ Tuam mother and baby home: 80 people come forward to give DNA to identify buried children Opens in new window ] And, hopefully, of its present. The digging up of the bodies of people disappeared by the IRA has helped us to grasp the truth that the Troubles themselves cannot simply be buried. Revenants like Jean McConville return, not just to remind us of the past but to warn us of what it means when people become, even after death, disposable. While the Tuam excavation continues, we have, in the corner of our eyes, a peripheral awareness of the undead. Since they were not allowed properly to rest in peace, we cannot do so either. Since they were so contemptuously consigned to oblivion, we are obliged to remember. Since they were sacrificed to a monolithic tunnel vision, we must tunnel down to bring buried truths to light and hidden histories to consciousness.
The Irish Sun
16-06-2025
- The Irish Sun
‘Significant day' as pre-excavation work begins at Tuam mother & baby home site in bid to ID & rebury 796 remains
PRE-excavation work on the site of a notorious former mother and baby home in Co Galway has begun. Advertisement 2 The remains of 796 babies and children are believed to have been buried at the site Credit: AFP The prep phase, which will last around four weeks, comes ahead of the full-scale excavation of the site to try to identify the remains of In 2014, research led by local historian Catherine Corless indicated the babies and young The St Mary's home for unmarried mothers and their kids was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns. In 2021, Advertisement Read more in News 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. Speaking about the work today, 'It's a very, very difficult harrowing story and situation. We have to wait to see what unfolds now as a result of the excavation.' Advertisement Most read in Irish News Latest She said: 'Survivors and relatives have suffered and been left in the dark for far too long, not knowing if their relative is amongst those placed in a disused septic tank. 'This uncertainty alone brings so much suffering. Mass grave discovered at former Catholic orphanage in Tuam, Ireland 'I hope that this process will provide much needed answers and that as many children as possible will be identified and reburied in a respectful and appropriate way." The work at the burial site, which is being undertaken by the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT), will involve exhumation, analysis, identification if possible, and re-interment of the remains at the site. Advertisement The pre-excavation work includes the installation of a 2.4-metre hoarding around the perimeter. 24-HOUR MONITORING The site will now be subject to security monitoring on a 24-hour basis to ensure the forensic integrity of the site during the excavation. Ahead of the preparatory work, Daniel MacSweeney, who leads the ODAIT, described the planned excavation as 'unique and incredibly complex'. One of Mr MacSweeney's main responsibilities will be to ensure any remains that are uncovered are re-interred in a respectful and appropriate way. Advertisement ODAIT's Selina Brogan and survivor Peter Mulryan, whose sister died in the home, were present for the launch of the pre-excavation work. The excavation is anticipated to last two years. 2 Pre-excavation work on the site of a notorious former mother and baby home in Co Galway has begun. Credit: PA
Irish Examiner
11-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
First mass exhumation of children's graves to begin in Tuam on June 16
The country's first-ever mass exhumation of a children's grave will begin on Monday, June 16, the Irish Examiner can reveal. Work at the site where 796 children are believed to be buried in Tuam, Co Galway, is set to begin following a decade-long campaign by the families of the children who died there. The names of the children who lived in the home from 1925 to 1961 were revealed in 2014 by local historian Catherine Corless. In a statement the Director of the Exhumation Daniel MacSweeney said, 'From the start of works on 16th June, the entire site, including the Memorial Garden, will be accessible only to staff carrying out the works and 24-hour security monitoring will be in place'. 'The initial four weeks will involve setting up the site, including the installation of 2.4-metre hoarding around the perimeter. These measures are necessary to ensure the site's forensic integrity and to enable us to carry out the works to the highest international standards that govern the excavation and recovery programme. He described the operation as a 'unique and incredibly complex excavation' and said it is expected to take around 24 months. 'The final timetable will depend on many variables, some of which may only become fully clear as the work progresses' he continued. 'As the site will be under forensic control at all times during the excavation, we have encouraged families and survivors to visit the site, if they wished to do so, in recent weeks. In addition, we are putting in a place plans to facilitate a day for family members and survivors to include a visit to the perimeter of the forensically controlled site to view the works being undertaken. This will take place in the coming weeks.' Mr MacSweeney is also encouraging families of the children to contact his team at info@ The Tuam grave site will be closed off while the work is underway, and strict controls on media and photographer access will be in place once the excavation begins. The office of the intervention said 'This is necessary to respect the sensitive nature of the excavation and recovery programme, respect survivors and family members, protect the integrity of the forensic examination, and respect the privacy and professionalism of staff and allow them to fully focus on carrying out the works. 'Therefore, from 16th June and for the entire duration of the works, media and photographers must refrain from visiting the site, taking videos or photographs, and seeking to engage with staff.' For more information about the excavation and recovery programme, please see
