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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 .
Irish Daily Mirror
15-06-2025
- Science
- Irish Daily Mirror
Irish academic uses AI in bid to cull one of Ireland's trickiest summer problems
An Irish academic has used artificial intelligence in a bid to cull one of Ireland's trickiest summer season problems – seagull attacks. Galway University's Dr John Jennings wants to stop seagulls sky-bombing to peck at people's heads and steal food right out of their hands. He believes he has come up with a possible AI solution to stop the seagulls, which many see as a 'nuisance', according to Dr John. The educational research expert has studied the future of AI and combined it with an investigation of the seagull problem at Galway city's famous Eyre Square green space. Dr Jennings then added a recommendation from his supervisor Dr Patrick Mannion to examine how windfarms use AI to protect birds by omitting a 'harmless deterrent noise' to scare them away. John said: 'It is no secret that there is a seagull problem. There is also an issue with safety, not only for unsuspecting people on their lunch break, but also for the seagulls themselves. 'Seagulls perch on bus shelters, lamp posts, flag posts and buildings. I saw where people and their food was threatened by the seagulls. 'I also saw where seagulls were put in danger by their interactions with people. When people get their fast food or sandwiches, they are suddenly surrounded by seagulls, flapping their wings and making noise. 'Some of the food is dropped or snatched directly from people's hands. This could ruin any lunch date. Seagulls are seen as either a nuisance or a novelty. People may get annoyed and become violent towards the seagulls. 'Solutions for dealing with birds include netting and spikes or – in extreme cases – Falconry, but you really can't place a net over all of Eyre Square.' Now Dr Jennings hopes he may have found the answer. He said: 'A seagull warning system would be linked to sensors. On identifying a seagull in proximity to humans, it would sound a harmless alarm. 'This system could also be adapted to warn humans of approaching seagulls. A seagull distraction system would involve AI connected to sensors to prevent seagull-human interaction. 'These systems would face outwards to see approaching seagulls. The AI would also be connected to specialised bird-feeding containers on rooftops near an area. When the AI picks up an incoming seagulls, the containers would open and distract them.'
Irish Independent
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Stellar performance from North Sligo AC's McGowan in Connemara
The-thirty-three-year old Economics lecturer in Galway University was among over 600 runners who faced the starter for one of Ireland's toughest marathons. The organisers put out a wind weather alert to competitors on the morning of the race, the North Sligo man said in over 20 years of running in all types of races this was the worst wind he encountered in competition. The hilly, bleak but beautiful landscape offered no protection from the gusting winds which runners had to face for almost half the race the terrain and winds tested the resilience and resolve of many of the competitors. McGowan, who is the fastest Sligo man over the marathon distance with a 2 hrs 22 min 35 secs, clocking from the Valencia marathon in Spain a few years ago,since then he has had his share of injuries and niggles which has stunted his progress at the distance. The tall and rangy runner had got a good block of almost injury free running in this past few months and was coming into very good form for this race. The Sligo man threw down the gauntlet right from the start and went through the halfway mark in just over 1 hr 12 mins with a lead of over 4 minutes on his nearest rival. He kept up this relentless effort over testing hills and at times head on winds right to the finish line which he crossed in 2 hrs 30 mins 53 secs for his first outright marathon win. Edward O'Connor from Brothers Pearse AC was 2nd in 2 hrs 45 mins and 3rd was Daniil Miasoedov in 2 hrs 48 mins. This was a great performance from the North Sligo AC athlete on this testing course, if he can stay injury free and keep his good form he hopes to have a crack at his own record in the Frankfurt marathon in October. In other club news, Shay Davis in his first race over the half marathon distance, recorded a good time of 1 hr 18 min 30 sec in the Carney half marathon to finish 3rd. ADVERTISEMENT Fergal McGrath set a new Pb of 1 hr 28 min, Jimmy Currid and Leo Donlon also ran new Pbs in the same race in 1 hr 30 min 53 sec and 1 hr 31 min 5 sec respectivly. Cormac Dillon and Paul Devins improved their 10k Pbs to set new figures of 37 min 33 sec and 38 min 12 sec in Carney 10k also. Valeria Petrova, on a trip home to Ukraine, ran in a 10k in Istanbul with 3,000 runners and she finished 4th in the women's section. The following week, she ran in a 10k in Ukraine with 33,000 participants and she finished 11th in the women's section, two great performances from this hardworking athlete.
