How 796 Babies Were Secretly Dumped In Septic Tanks By Nuns In Ireland

NDTV

14-07-2025

A woman whose sister was among the estimated 796 newborns secretly dumped in a septic tank beneath the St Mary's Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland, has just one mission - to give her a dignified burial.
The facility was run by the Bon Secours Sisters from 1925 to 1961, and Mary Margaret died there 80 years ago.
Forensic experts started excavating the site recently after years of pressure from families and survivors seeking closure.
Growing up, Manchester native Annette McKay, 71, was aware that she had an older sister who died when she was a baby. She was unaware that nuns had buried her in a mass grave.
But one day, when Ms McKay gave birth to a son, she thought her mother, Maggie O'Connor, would be ecstatic to know that she had become a great-grandmother. However, she found her crying outside her house, saying, "It's the baby, the baby."
Ms McKay told her mother, 70 at the time, that her great-grandson was doing well. Ms O'Connor was not referring to him. "Not your baby, my baby," she remarked, disclosing a long-kept secret. In June 1943, Nuns had informed Ms O'Connor, confined at the time as an unmarried teenage mother, that her "child of your sin is dead" without providing further details, and no dignified funeral was ever planned, CNN reported.
Ms O'Connor later relocated to England, where she had six more children and led what seemed to be a beautiful life, said Ms McKay. She added that her "glossy exterior was part of her survival" and that this was her "armour."
Ms McKay lamented that she never met her sister, but she took comfort in the thought that Ms Margaret was buried in a small tomb in the Irish countryside.
But after the truth came to light, Ms McKay vowed not to rest until her sister's remains were laid to rest with dignity to keep her name at the forefront of this national reckoning.
Ms McKay said she would not have her mother's name inscribed on her headstone until she can bring her back together with Mary Margaret.
Pregnant girls and single women were taken to dozens of "homes", including the Tuam institution, to give birth in secret over the majority of the 20th century. Children were frequently taken from their mothers by force after they were born. The mother and baby homes didn't save "illegitimate children" before 1960, an Irish government inquiry, launched in 2015, found.
Hundreds of babies perished, and their remains were thrown away; their mothers usually never found out what had happened to their children. Some babies were rehomed in places like Ireland, the United Kingdom, or even in other countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia.