Latest news with #CatherineCorless
Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Mayo woman completes 796th climb of Galway hill in memory of Tuam Mother and Baby Home victims
Hollymount native Anne Ronayne joined by Tuam historian Catherine Corless as she completes completes 796th climb of Knockma in County Galway Today at 10:08 A Mayo woman has scaled the ancient hill of Knockma 796 times in memory of every baby who died at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Anne Ronayne was joined by a group that included historian Catherine Corless and Mayo football legend Cora Staunton when she completed her final climb of Knockma over the weekend.
Sunday World
4 days ago
- General
- Sunday World
Expert suspects excavation at Tuam could uncover child trafficking by church
It may point to a child trafficking operation where mothers who had been banished to the homes to have their babies were told their children died TUAM, IRELAND - JULY 7: Tuam campaigner Anna Corrigan who suspects that her two lost brothers may be buried at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby home site wipes away tears as she attends a media day at the dig site on July 7, 2025 in Tuam, Ireland. From 1925 to 1961, hundreds of children died at the St Mary's Mother and Baby home, a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children, in Tuam, County Galway. It was run by the Bon Secours order of Catholic nuns, and this type of home was common across Ireland for many decades. Test excavations at the site took place in 2016 and 2017, and a mass burial site was found in a former sewage tank containing the remains of 796 babies and toddlers, ranging in age from 35 foetal weeks to two to three years. (Photo by) Tuam historian Catherine Corless whose painstaking research work brought news of the children's mass grave in Tuam to the world's attention () Baby shoes are pictured at a shrine in Tuam, County Galway in January 13, 2021, erected in memory of up to 800 children who were allegedly buried at the site of the former home for unmarried mothers run by nuns. - Irish prime minister Micheal Martin on Wednesday formally apologised for the treatment of unmarried women and their babies in state and church-run homes, where thousands of children died over decades. Some 9,000 children died in Ireland's "mother and baby homes", where unmarried mothers were routinely separated from their infant offspring, according to an official report published Tuesday. (Photo by Paul Faith / AFP) (Photo by PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images) Forensic archaeologist and anthropologist Toni Maguire says the excavation at a mass babies' grave at Tuam could uncover evidence of potential child trafficking by the Catholic Church. The expert says witness evidence states children's remains were wrapped in cloth and left on shelves in the underground tunnel in County Galway. Some of the tiny remains are now on the floor of what's believed to be an old septic tank at the former mother and baby home which could be a result of years of rat activity. Decades after the first discovery of tiny bones on the site, work has finally begun this week to remove and identify the children. Tuam historian Catherine Corless whose painstaking research work brought news of the children's mass grave in Tuam to the world's attention () Toni, who has been at the centre of locating remains in Milltown Cemetery of children from mother and baby homes in Northern Ireland, met with Galway historian Catherine Corless, whose discovery of 796 death certificates uncovered the Tuam scandal. There were no burial records for the dead children, but an incident in the 1970s, when local woman Mary Moriarty fell into the tunnel following the discovery of infant bones by two young boys, confirmed there were remains underground. 'It's absolutely macabre,' says Toni. 'When Mary Moriarty fell into the tunnel she said it was like a scene from Indiana Jones. There were bones everywhere. 'On the shelves there were bundles of what looked like dirty rags. They were using this place like a crypt. 'What you potentially have are individual babies wrapped in cloth and they just stacked them. 'The bones on the floor were indicators of uncoffined burials and rodent activity.' The expert says the painstaking work could uncover more remains. A sample of bones taken from the former site of the St Mary's mother and baby home run by the Bon Secours sisters was of a seven-and-a-half-month-old fetus which would not have had a birth certificate, and therefore no corresponding death certificate to find and include with the 796. But it could also uncover fewer remains, pointing to a child trafficking operation where unmarried mothers who had been banished to the homes to have their babies were told their children had died. The Tuam home operated from 1925 until 1961. Campaigner Toni Maguire. News in 90 Seconds - July 26th 'There is the potential for that,' says Toni. 'If they say 1,000 babies died, and I'm only finding 750, where are the other 250? 'If you were a young mum who came back looking for your baby and you're told it had died you stop looking. One inspector's report for Mother and Baby Homes in the south said babies had a better chance in a hedgerow than in a mother and baby home, but is that the case or was the high death rate a potential cover for babies being adopted elsewhere?' Toni, who has given evidence to a Stormont committee as part of the upcoming inquiry into Northern Ireland's mother and baby homes scandal, which involved more than 10,000 women and girls, says there was widespread movement of pregnant women from south to north to have their babies. 'Babies born in the north were British citizens entitled to birth certificates and passports. In the south illegitimate babies were not entitled to all their documentation. 'Moving people across different legal jurisdictions makes it easier to lose track of them for the purpose of anyone looking for them later. 'They can say there is no record of your birth, because there wouldn't be. That baby was born in a different country.' She got copies of the baptism register for the Marianvale home in Newry which showed mothers were from Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork, from Derry and from England. 'One entry in the book said this baby is going to be recorded in the Diocese of Cincinnati. It wasn't going to be recorded as a British citizen. It was going to be moved to America and recorded there. 'It was potentially people trafficking.' The expert says remains recovered from the Tuam site could reveal the cause of death among the hundreds of infants. Children in mother and baby homes, north and south, had a much higher death rate than in the general population. 'If you look at a lot of the death certificates there are a disproportionate number which record marasmus, which is malnutrition. 'Inspectors who visited these home said the children were emaciated. 'The evidence from the bones themselves will depend on the state of preservation.' After the scandal of the Tuam babies broke, the Bon Secours sisters acknowledged the order had failed to protect the 'inherent dignity' of the women and children in the home, and in 2021 Taoiseach Micheál Martin apologised on behalf of the state. Toni, who helped secure historian Catherine's first meeting with Galway County Council, says it also bears responsibility for Tuam. 'I stated at that first meeting with Galway Council this is Catherine's research and I'm not here to step on her toes, however I did mention to them that private cemetery status doesn't apply to Tuam because the Bon Secours sisters didn't own Tuam, they only leased it. 'Theoretically Galway County Council's duty was to ensure any burials complied with regulations at that time.' Following her work at Milltown Cemetery, Toni is backing an Alliance bill at Stormont to bring all of Northern Ireland's private cemeteries including those attached to institutions under the same regulations as public graveyards by removing private cemetery status.
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Why has it taken a decade to exhume the bodies of the 800 dead babies of Tuam?
A young girl played on a swing near a mass grave as the names of hundreds of children who died in a mother-and-baby institution in Ireland were read out during a memorial service late last year. The bright day turned to dark in the time it took. Now, the playground near the site in Tuam has been dismantled and the long-awaited exhumation has begun. But why has it taken more than a decade since it emerged that those dead children were likely buried in sewage chambers on the grounds of a publicly funded institution run by nuns and the local council? A technical drawing from the 1970s of the council housing estate built on the grounds showed 'old children's burial ground' written directly above 'proposed playground'. Local authorities knew long ago. News first broke in 2014 after Catherine Corless, who was working on a history project, tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children for whom there were almost no burial records. She had gone to the Bon Secours Sisters, the Catholic organisation that ran the home, to the local bishop and the authorities. Little was done until she went to the media. It is a vindication of Corless's work that the exhumation is taking place, but also disturbing that it was never a certainty. I had already started writing a book about survivors of Ireland's institutions for 'unmarried mothers' when a test excavation publicly confirmed 'significant human remains' at Tuam, dating to the time the nuns ran the home, between 1925 and 1961. In 2018, the public was asked what should be done. I keep thinking of the 'talking stone', a lump of grey felt handed around a public meeting organised by Galway county council, which owned the site, in a Tuam hotel. We were asked to hold it and say what we wanted to happen about a mass grave of babies. Options ranged from memorialisation alone to the full forensic excavation happening today. While it was important to talk about it, it also felt surreal and even wrong, with some people asking why the site was not being treated as any other crime scene. One man described Tuam as 'ground zero' and begged: 'Dig those bodies up, every one of them, all over the country. Give the children some dignity.' Even if one family was able to get an answer, it was worth it. A woman from the housing estate pointed out that she had 'no right to tell a survivor you cannot identify where your brother or sister is' and hoped the children would not be left 'in a cesspit with just a plaque'. It was survivors, families and all those who wanted the truth for them who fought relentlessly against an ongoing silence from church and state. It was activists such as Izzy Kamikaze, who found an old map showing cesspools in the grounds that were known locally to have included a burial site. Bones had been found sporadically down the years. As the former Irish president Mary McAleese said about systemic abuse: 'We heard it through the media, we heard it through the courage of victims, we heard it through lawyers, we heard it through government. We never really heard it openly, spontaneously from our church.' I would say we never heard it first from those in power either, even when, in the case of the Tuam children, they had access to the information long before, from earlier investigations. At a council meeting in the 1960s, an influential politician argued against the impending closure of Tuam, saying, 'The county has the benefit of the money spent there.' I reported how a Tuam survivor fostered by the same politician spoke of abuse and exploitation for labour. She died before seeing any justice. 'Our Lord was crucified and so were the women of this country,' PJ Haverty, a Tuam survivor who first took me to the burial site, told me. 'The nuns had power, it was all about money and it was all about power.' His mother had gone to the nuns day after day trying to get her baby back. Tuam was just one in a system of institutions that operated until as recently as 2006, where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth, were effectively incarcerated and, in many cases, were forcibly separated from their children: more than 50,000 mothers and more than 50,000 children. A commission of investigation, forced by the news of Tuam, began in 2015 and concluded in 2021, finding that 9,000 children had died in these 'homes'. But it called the institutions 'refuges' and dismissed survivor testimonies about the inhumanity and abuses. The official redress scheme now excludes thousands of survivors, seemingly to cut costs. In 2018, during the government press conference announcing the decision to excavate, I was told by the then children's minister Katherine Zappone that Tuam could set a precedent for other institutions. There are many families still searching for answers. There are also mass graves on the grounds of similar institutions in the UK, the US and Canada. The crimes of the Catholic church are global. At the memorial last year, Tuam survivor Peter Mulryan told me he didn't want to sign the legal waiver required for redress, under which recipients agree not to take any further action against the state about their experience, so preventing any legal justice, describing it as 'another insult to survivors'. But, at 81, he felt he had no choice and is happy others are taking the case to court. Mulryan was one of many Tuam children 'boarded out' to a farm, and he told me he was brutally exploited there, with no justice or redress. His mother was sent to the Galway Magdalene laundry for the rest of her life. Corless found a sister he never knew about, who had died at Tuam. He has spoken out for most of a decade, hoping to find her. Religious sisters did speak to me for my book, but were often silenced by superiors or after legal advice. Meanwhile, voices from within the religious right, including the president of the Catholic League in the US, have called Tuam 'a hoax', in a country where reproductive rights are rolled back and Catholic hospitals have increasing influence. The Bon Secours order is part of an international healthcare conglomerate worth billions in the US. Terry Prone, whose PR firm acted for the Bon Secours Sisters, wrote a now infamous email when the news first broke, calling it the 'O my God – mass grave in West of Ireland' story and warning a French TV journalist: 'You'll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried.' At a reading of my book, a man repeated the hoax claim, even after public photos from the test excavation showed the slits in a huge tank, making any proper burial impossible, the blurred photos of infant bones inside, and a baby's blue shoe. Despite this, religious and political conservatives in Ireland, rallying against recent progressive changes, have even argued for bringing back such institutions. From the earliest years, the state knew that 'illegitimate' children in these institutions were dying at sometimes five times the rate of children born within marriage. Death certificates show children dying of malnutrition, or marked as 'imbecile', one boy convulsing for 12 hours before dying. The children's lives were not valued. I think of Julia Devaney, a domestic worker in Tuam, who described it in taped interviews as barracks-like, smelling of the wet beds of frightened and deprived children, while nuns treated officials from local authorities to lavish dinners on the grounds. Devaney said a nun who worked there left the Bon Secours because of what she saw. 'They knew well that the home was a queer place, 'twas a rotten place,' said Devaney. 'I feel a sense of shame that I did not create a war.' Survivors are still fighting their long battle for truth and justice, hoping similar injustices will never be repeated. I believe that even today church and state perpetuate the silences and inequalities that led to a mass grave of children. This excavation can be a reckoning, a reminder to those in power to listen to those who are owed real accountability: the survivors and the families of the many children who can no longer speak. Caelainn Hogan is an Irish journalist and the author of Republic of Shame
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Why has it taken a decade to exhume the bodies of the 800 dead babies of Tuam?
A young girl played on a swing near a mass grave as the names of hundreds of children who died in a mother-and-baby institution in Ireland were read out during a memorial service late last year. The bright day turned to dark in the time it took. Now, the playground near the site in Tuam has been dismantled and the long-awaited exhumation has begun. But why has it taken more than a decade since it emerged that those dead children were likely buried in sewage chambers on the grounds of a publicly funded institution run by nuns and the local council? A technical drawing from the 1970s of the council housing estate built on the grounds showed 'old children's burial ground' written directly above 'proposed playground'. Local authorities knew long ago. News first broke in 2014 after Catherine Corless, who was working on a history project, tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children for whom there were almost no burial records. She had gone to the Bon Secours Sisters, the Catholic organisation that ran the home, to the local bishop and the authorities. Little was done until she went to the media. It is a vindication of Corless's work that the exhumation is taking place, but also disturbing that it was never a certainty. I had already started writing a book about survivors of Ireland's institutions for 'unmarried mothers' when a test excavation publicly confirmed 'significant human remains' at Tuam, dating to the time the nuns ran the home, between 1925 and 1961. In 2018, the public was asked what should be done. I keep thinking of the 'talking stone', a lump of grey felt handed around a public meeting organised by Galway county council, which owned the site, in a Tuam hotel. We were asked to hold it and say what we wanted to happen about a mass grave of babies. Options ranged from memorialisation alone to the full forensic excavation happening today. While it was important to talk about it, it also felt surreal and even wrong, with some people asking why the site was not being treated as any other crime scene. One man described Tuam as 'ground zero' and begged: 'Dig those bodies up, every one of them, all over the country. Give the children some dignity.' Even if one family was able to get an answer, it was worth it. A woman from the housing estate pointed out that she had 'no right to tell a survivor you cannot identify where your brother or sister is' and hoped the children would not be left 'in a cesspit with just a plaque'. It was survivors, families and all those who wanted the truth for them who fought relentlessly against an ongoing silence from church and state. It was activists such as Izzy Kamikaze, who found an old map showing cesspools in the grounds that were known locally to have included a burial site. Bones had been found sporadically down the years. As the former Irish president Mary McAleese said about systemic abuse: 'We heard it through the media, we heard it through the courage of victims, we heard it through lawyers, we heard it through government. We never really heard it openly, spontaneously from our church.' I would say we never heard it first from those in power either, even when, in the case of the Tuam children, they had access to the information long before, from earlier investigations. At a council meeting in the 1960s, an influential politician argued against the impending closure of Tuam, saying, 'The county has the benefit of the money spent there.' I reported how a Tuam survivor fostered by the same politician spoke of abuse and exploitation for labour. She died before seeing any justice. 'Our Lord was crucified and so were the women of this country,' PJ Haverty, a Tuam survivor who first took me to the burial site, told me. 'The nuns had power, it was all about money and it was all about power.' His mother had gone to the nuns day after day trying to get her baby back. Tuam was just one in a system of institutions that operated until as recently as 2006, where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth, were effectively incarcerated and, in many cases, were forcibly separated from their children: more than 50,000 mothers and more than 50,000 children. A commission of investigation, forced by the news of Tuam, began in 2015 and concluded in 2021, finding that 9,000 children had died in these 'homes'. But it called the institutions 'refuges' and dismissed survivor testimonies about the inhumanity and abuses. The official redress scheme now excludes thousands of survivors, seemingly to cut costs. In 2018, during the government press conference announcing the decision to excavate, I was told by the then children's minister Katherine Zappone that Tuam could set a precedent for other institutions. There are many families still searching for answers. There are also mass graves on the grounds of similar institutions in the UK, the US and Canada. The crimes of the Catholic church are global. At the memorial last year, Tuam survivor Peter Mulryan told me he didn't want to sign the legal waiver required for redress, under which recipients agree not to take any further action against the state about their experience, so preventing any legal justice, describing it as 'another insult to survivors'. But, at 81, he felt he had no choice and is happy others are taking the case to court. Mulryan was one of many Tuam children 'boarded out' to a farm, and he told me he was brutally exploited there, with no justice or redress. His mother was sent to the Galway Magdalene laundry for the rest of her life. Corless found a sister he never knew about, who had died at Tuam. He has spoken out for most of a decade, hoping to find her. Religious sisters did speak to me for my book, but were often silenced by superiors or after legal advice. Meanwhile, voices from within the religious right, including the president of the Catholic League in the US, have called Tuam 'a hoax', in a country where reproductive rights are rolled back and Catholic hospitals have increasing influence. The Bon Secours order is part of an international healthcare conglomerate worth billions in the US. Terry Prone, whose PR firm acted for the Bon Secours Sisters, wrote a now infamous email when the news first broke, calling it the 'O my God – mass grave in West of Ireland' story and warning a French TV journalist: 'You'll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried.' At a reading of my book, a man repeated the hoax claim, even after public photos from the test excavation showed the slits in a huge tank, making any proper burial impossible, the blurred photos of infant bones inside, and a baby's blue shoe. Despite this, religious and political conservatives in Ireland, rallying against recent progressive changes, have even argued for bringing back such institutions. From the earliest years, the state knew that 'illegitimate' children in these institutions were dying at sometimes five times the rate of children born within marriage. Death certificates show children dying of malnutrition, or marked as 'imbecile', one boy convulsing for 12 hours before dying. The children's lives were not valued. I think of Julia Devaney, a domestic worker in Tuam, who described it in taped interviews as barracks-like, smelling of the wet beds of frightened and deprived children, while nuns treated officials from local authorities to lavish dinners on the grounds. Devaney said a nun who worked there left the Bon Secours because of what she saw. 'They knew well that the home was a queer place, 'twas a rotten place,' said Devaney. 'I feel a sense of shame that I did not create a war.' Survivors are still fighting their long battle for truth and justice, hoping similar injustices will never be repeated. I believe that even today church and state perpetuate the silences and inequalities that led to a mass grave of children. This excavation can be a reckoning, a reminder to those in power to listen to those who are owed real accountability: the survivors and the families of the many children who can no longer speak. Caelainn Hogan is an Irish journalist and the author of Republic of Shame
The Irish Sun
15-07-2025
- Health
- The Irish Sun
Dark history of Tuam mother and baby home as 2-year dig begins to identify 800 babies in historic mass grave exhumation
THE excavation on the grounds of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home began on Monday, 100 years after it was first established in Co Galway. A team of 3 The excavation on the grounds of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home has begun 3 A team of Irish and international forensic experts are taking part in the dig Credit:3 Catherine Corless managed to trace 796 of the babies who died at the home Credit:They will try to The site, surrounded by a 2.4 metre-high hoarding, is security monitored on a 24-hour basis to ensure the forensic integrity of the site during the excavation. Daniel MacSweeney, who A visit for families and survivors to view the site ahead of the commencement of the full excavation took place last Tuesday. Read more in News Here, Emma McMenamy looks at the dark history of the Tuam mother and baby home. 1925: A former workhouse which housed destitute adults and children during the famine was converted into a mother and baby home. Despite it being owned by Many women who had children out of wedlock were sent here, one of several institutions that existed and housed those who had been ostracised by Irish society. Most read in Irish News According to research, a child from the Tuam Mother and Baby Home died every two weeks between the years of 1925 and 1961. 1961: After the building had fallen into disrepair, those who were still there were moved to other institutions and the Tuam Mother and Baby Home officially closed its doors. Tuam mother and baby home: Catherine Corless's research revealed that 796 children died at St Mary's in Galway 1972: Work begins on a new council-owned housing estate in the area of the now demolished mother and baby home. 1975: While playing near the site of the old home, two 12-year-old boys discover skeletal remains in a concrete structure. Locals assume they are remains from a famine grave and call for a priest to bless the site before it is re-sealed. Locals believe it is an old burial site and erect a memorial garden and shrine to mark the area. 'VERY HIGH INFANT MORTALITY RATE' 2012: But she also asks the question why there are no records of where the Tuam babies who died at the home were buried. 2013: A year later Ms Corless goes about collating the death certificates of a staggering 798 children who died at the home. She managed to trace 796. CAMPAIGN CALL 2014: In February, the regional newspaper, The Connacht Tribune, publishes an interview with Ms Corless about her campaign for a permanent memorial for the babies who died at the Tuam home to include a plaque which would display all 796 infant names. Two months later, Mail on Sunday journalist Alison O'Reilly published a story claiming that up to 800 bodies could be buried at the site and the article gains massive international attention. By June, just a few months after the initial interview with Ms Corless about the Tuam babies, the Government announce that it is setting up a nationwide commission of investigation into Ireland's mother and baby homes. 2015: The commission panel is asked to examine the living conditions in the homes as well as the mortality rates, causes of death and burial arrangements. TEST DIGS BEGIN 2016: Test excavations at the site begin as part of the commission of investigation. 2018: Ms Corless is among those honoured at Ireland's People of the Year Awards. Minister for Children Katherine Zappone announces plans for a forensic excavation of the Tuam site. 2019: Four years after being established, the commission outlines its conclusions on burial arrangements at the homes in its fifth interim report and states that a total of 802 children died inside the Tuam Mother and Baby Home while it was open, as well as 12 mothers. 'OPEN TO CHALLENGE' 2020: President 2021: The final report of the commission's findings are published and it concludes that about 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions under investigation and it makes 53 recommendations including In response to the report, the Bon Secours offer their 'profound apologies 'to all the women and children who lived at the Tuam home. The then-Taoiseach 2022: The Irish government agreed draft legislation to excavate the Tuam site. 2025: Excavation finally begins at the Tuam Mother and Baby home site.
