For decades, no one knew the truth: no burial records, no gravestones, no memorials. But behind a playground in Tuam, County Galway, on a simple patch of grass, investigators now believe the remains of 796 children lie in a secret mass grave.
This week, excavation work began on the site of the former St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home, run by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 and 1961. The institution housed unmarried pregnant women who were often shunned by society and separated from their children after birth.
A Hidden Past Unearthed
The site’s dark secret was brought to light in 2014 by Catherine Corless, an amateur historian from Tuam. Her research uncovered death certificates for 796 children linked to the home—but not a single burial record. Many of the children are believed to be buried in a disused sewage tank beneath the lawn.
“When I started out, I had no idea what I was going to find,” said Corless. After years of inquiries met with silence and suspicion, she compiled a list of the children who died at the home. A local caretaker told her of a disturbing discovery in the 1970s—two boys found bones beneath a concrete slab, but the site was quietly covered up.
Maps from the 1920s labeled the area as a “sewage tank,” while later documents marked it as a “burial ground.” Corless’s findings were later confirmed in a 2017 government investigation that found “significant quantities of human remains.”
Survivors and Witnesses Speak Out
PJ Haverty, who spent his early years at the home, recalls being segregated at school. “You were dirt from the street,” he says. Others like Mary Moriarty, who lived nearby in the 1970s, remember seeing “hundreds” of small, wrapped bundles—baby remains—after falling into a hole on the site.
Anna Corrigan, whose mother gave birth to two boys in Tuam, discovered one died at 16 months. The death certificate listed “congenital idiot” and “measles” as causes. She has never found where her brothers were buried.
Now, Anna is part of a campaign pushing for full excavation and identification. “We all know their names. We all know they existed,” she says.
A Forensic First
Leading the excavation is Daniel MacSweeney, known for recovering bodies from conflict zones. The work is expected to take two years due to the delicate nature of the remains. “An infant’s femur is the size of an adult’s finger,” he explained. “We need to recover them very, very carefully.”
The goal is to identify as many children as possible and offer long-awaited closure to their families. For survivors and relatives, this is more than a dig—it’s a long-overdue reckoning with Ireland’s painful past.
