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Canada News.Net
18-07-2025
- General
- Canada News.Net
Excavations begin at child mass grave site in Ireland
Excavations begin Monday of an unmarked mass burial site at a former mother and baby home in westernIrelandsuspected of containing the remains of hundreds of infants and youngchildren. The planned two-year probe by Irish and foreign experts in Tuam comes more than a decade after an amateur historian first uncovered evidence of a mass grave there. Subsequent 2016-2017 test excavations found significant quantities of baby remains in a subterranean disused septic tank at the location, which now sits within ahousingcomplex. Catholic nuns ran a so-called "mother and baby" institution there between 1925 and 1961,housingwomen who had become pregnant outside ofmarriageand been shunned by their families. After giving birth, some children lived in the homes too but many more were given up for adoption under a system that often saw church and state work in tandem. Watch moreIrish church and state apologise for appalling treatment in mother and baby homes Oppressive and misogynistic, the institutions -- which operated nationwide, some not closing until as recently as 1998 -- represent a dark chapter in the history of once overwhelmingly Catholic and socially conservative Ireland. A six-year enquiry sparked by the initial discoveries in Tuam found 56,000 unmarried women and 57,000 children passed through 18 such homes over a 76-year period. It also concluded that 9,000 children had died in the various state- and Catholic Church-run homes nationwide. Records unearthed show as many as 796 babies and young children died at the Tuam home over the decades that it operated. Its grounds have been left largely untouched after the institution was knocked down in 1972 and housing was built there. 'A fierce battle' "These children were denied every human right in their lifetime, as were their mothers," Anna Corrigan, whose two siblings may have been buried at the Tuam site, told reporters earlier this month. "And they were denied dignity and respect in death." Ireland's Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention (ODAIT) will undertake the excavation, alongside experts from Colombia, Spain, Britain, Canada and the United States. It will involve exhumation, analysis, identification if possible, and re-interment of the remains found, its director Daniel MacSweeney told a recent press conference in Tuam. It follows local historian Catherine Corless in 2014 producing evidence that the 796 children -- from newborns to a nine-year-old -- had died at the home. State-issued death certificates she compiled show that various ailments, from tuberculosis and convulsions tomeaslesand whooping cough, were listed as the cause of death. Corless's research indicated the corpses were likely placed in the disused septic tank discovered in 1975, while prompting the state-backed enquiries that have uncovered the full scandal of the homes. The ODAIT team was finally appointed in 2023 to lead the Tuam site excavation. DNA samples have already been collected from around 30 relatives, and this process will be expanded in the coming months to gather as much genetic evidence as possible, according to MacSweeney. A 2.4-meter-high (7.9 feet) hoarding has been installed around the perimeter of the excavation area, which is also subject to 24-hour security monitoring to ensure its forensic integrity. "It's been a fierce battle. When I started this nobody wanted to listen. At last we are righting the wrongs," Corless, 71, told AFP in May. "I was just begging: 'take the babies out of this sewage system and give them the decent Christian burial that they were denied'," she said. (FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Irish Post
15-07-2025
- Irish Post
Full forensic excavation of Tuam mother and baby home site begins
THE full forensic excavation of the site of a former mother and baby home in Co. Galway has now begun. Preparation works began at the site in Tuam last month. Forensic excavation work is now underway at the site in Tuam, Co. Galway Up to 800 children are beieved to have been buried in a septic tank at the site while it was in operation under the Bon Secours sisters from 1925 to 1961. The excavation, which will exhume the remains of all those buried there, is being led by the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT). Last week families of those connected to the site were invited to view the works so far. Yesterday the actual excavation began, with ground officially broken at the site at 10.38am on July 14. The site will now be entirely closed off to the public and concealed from view for the 24 months the excavation is expected to take. There is 24-hour security in place and a 2.4-metre hoarding erected around the perimeter of the site. A 2.4m hoarding has been installed around the site '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,' Daniel MacSweeney, who leads the ODAIT, said. Dr Niamh McCullagh, ODAIT's Senior Forensic Consultant, is leading the forensic excavation alongside other Irish specialists and international experts from Colombia, Spain, UK, Canada, Australia and the US. 'ODAIT's multidisciplinary forensic approach to the complex challenge of the excavation is grounded in the expertise of forensic archaeologists, osteoarchaeologists, forensic anthropologists together with experts in crime scene management including evidence management and forensic photography,' a spokesperson for the organisation confirmed. See More: Galway, Mother And Baby Home, Tuam
Al Jazeera
15-07-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
How were babies' mass graves discovered in church-run home in Ireland?
Digging has begun to uncover the remains of some 800 infants and young children buried in mass graves in Tuam, western Ireland. These children have been unidentified for at least 65 years, and it was only a decade ago that a local historian discovered the existence of the mass graves. Here is what we know about who they may be, how they were found, and how they died. What's happening now? The excavation, which began on Monday, is expected to last two years. It will be on the site of St Mary's, a 'mother and baby home' run by the nuns of the Catholic order of Bon Secours Sisters, which no longer exists. The excavation will be by Ireland's Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention (ODAIT), in collaboration with experts from the United Kingom, Canada, Colombia, Spain and the United States. Daniel MacSweeney, ODAIT director in Tuam, who is leading the excavation, told a recent news conference that the remains will be exhumed, analysed, identified where possible, and reburied. He added that the exhumation is 'incredibly complex' because some remains are mingled, archival records are lacking and it will be difficult to separate male from female remains if DNA cannot be recovered. What is a 'mother and baby home'? 'Mother and baby homes' were established across Ireland in the 20th century to house unmarried pregnant women who had no other source of support – family or otherwise – in a deeply conservative society. The vast majority of the 'homes' were operated by religious institutions, chiefly the Catholic Church. Shunned by society, the women sought help there, often suffering deep neglect and mistreatment, having their babies taken away for 'adoptions' they could not trace. St Mary's housed thousands of single mothers and their children between 1925 and 1961. It also housed hundreds of families of different configurations as well as unaccompanied children. How were the graves found? Local historian Catherine Corless discovered them nearly a decade ago. Corless grew up in Tuam and held vague memories of 'gaunt, desolate children being herded into the classroom at school, always a little later than the rest of us', she wrote in The Observer late last month. 'We were instructed by the nuns not to mix with those children, told that they carried disease. They did not continue into the higher classes and were soon forgotten,' Corless wrote. In 2012, Corless remembered the children when asked to contribute to a publication by the local historical society. She learned about the home after speaking to elderly residents of the city and began piecing information together, poring through maps and records. She found that there were no burial records for the many babies and children who died before the home closed down in 1961. While they had all been baptised, the Church denied knowledge of their death or burials. She also found that in 1970, two boys had found bones in an exposed part of the sewage tank and concluded there was enough evidence that the deceased babies and children were buried in a mass grave. Corless found records showing that as many as 796 babies and children died while they were at the home. Corless wrote that the Bon Secours sisters hired a PR company to deny the existence of a mass grave, claiming the bones were from the famine. However, Irish media eventually picked up her findings, prompting the Irish government to launch an investigation in 2015 into about 18 of the large mother and baby homes in Ireland. In 2016, a preliminary excavation revealed 'significant quantities of human remains' at Tuam. How did these babies die? State-issued death certificates list a range of causes of death, including tuberculosis, convulsions, anaemia, meningitis, measles, whooping cough and sometimes no reason. The first child to die was Patrick Derrane, who was five months old when he died from gastroenteritis in 1925. The last child to die was Mary Carty, also five months old when she died in 1960. The reason for her death is not specified. St Mary's was in a large 'workhouse' that was built in the mid-1800s, and it lacked central heating, heated water, and adequate sanitary facilities for nearly its entire existence. In the report by a commission established to investigate 'mother and baby homes' in Ireland, former inmates had mixed experiences, with some saying their time at St Mary's was fine, while others recounted a lack of food, rest, warmth, and even mothers denied access to their children. What has the church said? In 2014, then-Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary said: 'I am horrified and saddened to hear of the large number of deceased children involved and this points to a time of great suffering and pain for the little ones and their mothers. 'As the diocese did not have any involvement in the running of the home in Tuam, we do not have any material relating to it in our archives,' Neary said. He added that the records held by the Bon Secours Sisters were handed to Galway County Council and health authorities in 1961. In January of that year, the Bon Secours Sisters issued an apology signed by Sister Eileen O'Connor, which included: 'We did not live up to our Christianity when running the Home. 'We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the Home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way. For all that, we are deeply sorry.' Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin acknowledged that the Catholic Church was part of a culture that stigmatised people. 'For that, and for the long-lasting hurt and emotional distress that has resulted, I unreservedly apologise to the survivors and to all those who are personally impacted,' he said in 2021. In 2021, the Irish government released a 3,000-page report based on the findings from their investigation which was launched in 2015. After this, all institutions formally apologised and pledged to excavate the site at Tuam. In January of that year, the Bon Secours Sisters issued an apology statement. 'We did not live up to our Christianity when running the Home,' the statement wrote. The statement, signed off by Sister Eileen O'Connor acknowledged that the sisters did not uphold the inherent dignity of the women and children who came to the Home. Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin also apologised, acknowledging that the Catholic Church was part of a culture where people were stigmatised or judged. 'For that, and for the long-lasting hurt and emotional distress that has resulted, I unreservedly apologise to the survivors and to all those who are personally impacted by the realities it uncovers,' Marin said in a statement in 2021. What has the Irish government said? Also in January of 2021, Irish Prime Minister (or Taoiseach) Micheal Martin apologised in parliament on behalf of the state. In 2021, the Irish government released the 3,000-page commission report after six years of investigation, resulting in formal apologies and pledges to excavate the site at Tuam. In 2022, a law was passed allowing the remains to be exhumed and tested. What have family members of inmates said? 'These children were denied every human right in their lifetime as were their mothers,' Anna Corrigan, whose two siblings may have been buried at Tuam, told reporters this month. 'And they were denied dignity and respect in death.' Many children born in the homes survived but were taken to orphanages in other places or put up for adoption by the nuns. The mothers and families of these children did not know, and in many cases could not find out, what happened to their babies. Has this only happened in Ireland? Children in state or religious care in other parts of the world have also been abused in the past. In New Zealand, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found in 2024 that approximately one in three individuals in state or religious care between 1950 and 2019 experienced abuse. During this period, about 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, which particularly targeted Indigenous Maori and Pacific Islanders. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada found that the residential school system had amounted to cultural genocide. The system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous children who were forcefully taken from their families for 'reprogramming'. They ran from 1879 to 1997 under the Catholic, Anglican and United Churches.
Boston Globe
14-07-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Dig for children's remains begins at Irish home for unwed mothers
'Some of the families have been really seeking answers to these questions for many years,' Daniel MacSweeney, who directs the excavation, said in an interview. He leads the Office of the Director of Authorized Intervention, Tuam, an independent organization established by the Irish government in 2022 to recover the remains. The team began with small motorized diggers, MacSweeney said, while specialists watched for signs of remains. Once bodies appear, he said, the work will continue by hand, noting 'the complexity of the challenge.' Advertisement Scientists estimate that infant bodies lie 'commingled' in the tanks under St. Mary's Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, a town in County Galway in the west of Ireland. The institution was long one of the most notorious homes for unwed mothers in Ireland. In the first decades of Irish independence, when the Catholic Church ruled almost every aspect of daily life with an uncompromising doctrine, unmarried pregnant women in Ireland were widely seen as immoral. Shunned by their communities and disowned by their families, they were often sent to one of many such homes. Advertisement There, the young women were forced to work. Their babies died at rates far above the national average. Some mothers were deceived and told that their babies had died, when the infants had in fact been illegally adopted from the facilities. 'If that's a reflection of where particularly poor and marginalized women's rights were, it's a fairly damning one,' Sarah-Anne Buckley, an associate professor in history at Galway University and a co-leader of the Tuam Oral History Project, said in an interview. 'It's the women, but it's also the children.' In that era, few people could speak out against the Catholic Church, which ran the homes and other institutions with near-absolute power. The government last year reported that there had been thousands of allegations of sexual abuse at schools run by Catholic orders in the past century. Some of the women of Tuam have spent fruitless decades searching for their children, dead or alive. They had little to go on until information about the infants' deaths began to emerge over a decade ago, thanks to the work of an amateur historian, Catherine Corless. Corless found that at least 798 children had died at St. Mary's, but only two were buried in the cemetery across the street. In 2014, after interviewing survivors and combing through the archives, she made a shocking allegation: The nuns had secretly buried infants and young children in the septic system. 'This was immoral,' she told The New York Times in an interview in 2022. 'Against Catholic ethos. This was a sewage facility!' Advertisement The home's managers, the Sisters of Bon Secours, apologized in 2021: 'We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the Home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way.' On Monday, the order declined to make its leadership available for an interview or respond to questions from the Times. The home was demolished decades ago and a housing project was built on the site. The dig, authorized by the Irish government in 2022, is expected to last for about two years, during which time active sites will be concealed from public view and protected by security. MacSweeney, the dig's leader, said that the budget for this year is about $11 million. He emphasized the many challenges. The team does not know how many children are buried in the ancient septic system, which has 20 tanks. They are preparing to separate the bones, which are believed to be jumbled together, to try to rebuild individual skeletons. They then need to try to identify the children by extracting DNA samples from the remains, which, after decades of decomposition, is not guaranteed. And the bones are tiny, making the painstaking work even harder. If they can get usable DNA samples, they will try to match them to samples given by relatives. Finally, the scientists know that there are 19th-century famine remains at the site, which was also a military barracks and execution site during Ireland's civil war in the 1920s. They do not know if bones from those eras could be mixed with those of children who died at St. Mary's. But one thing is certain: The jumbled graveyard beneath the soil tells some of the most painful chapters of Irish history, the wounds of which remain unhealed. Advertisement This article originally appeared in .
New York Times
14-07-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Dig for Children's Remains Begins at Irish Home for Unwed Mothers
Excavators broke ground on Monday in western Ireland to search for the bodies of hundreds of babies and young children, some of them discarded in septic tanks, who died at a home for unwed mothers that was managed by Catholic nuns from 1925 to 1961. The circumstances of the children's short lives, the treatment of the mothers and the decades of secrecy surrounding the deaths have been recognized widely as a profound moral stain on the Irish government, which funded the institution, and the Catholic Church, which managed it. About half of the children, estimated to number about 800 in all, died before their first birthdays. 'Some of the families have been really seeking answers to these questions for many years,' Daniel MacSweeney, who directs the excavation, said in an interview. He leads the Office of the Director of Authorized Intervention, Tuam, an independent organization established by the Irish government in 2022 to recover the remains. The team began with small motorized diggers, Mr. MacSweeney said, while specialists watched for signs of remains. Once bodies appear, he said, the work will continue by hand, noting 'the complexity of the challenge.' Scientists estimate that infant bodies lie 'commingled' in the tanks under St. Mary's Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, a town in County Galway in the west of Ireland. The institution was long one of the most notorious homes for unwed mothers in Ireland. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
