Irish Sunday Mirror

I want to know where my son is buried

Tuam mum Christina’s emotional plea

- BY ALISON O’REILLY news@irishmirro­r.ie

A WOMAN of 90 who believes her son is buried in a septic tank at the site of the Tuam babies is set to protest outside the Dail to demand answers.

Christina “Chrissie” Tully has never left Galway but next week she will make the journey to Dublin to call for the mass grave to be opened.

The brave survivor was locked up twice at the home and held her secret for 70 years but she said she wants to “do something for the Tuam babies before I die”.

Chrissie, from Loughrea, is the first mother from the controvers­ial site run by the Bon Secours nuns to come forward and publicly reveal her possible link to the mass grave.

She told the Irish Sunday Mirror “I don’t know how much time I have left.

“I wasn’t going to say a word, I didn’t know where Michael was buried, I still don’t but I can’t find any records for him.

“I always thought he was in the grounds of the Galway hospital in an angel plot, but now they tell me there’s no record of him.

“I have one hospital record, and that says ‘return to the Tuam home’

I don’t close my eyes at night until I have said the rosary for Michael CHRISTINA TULLY CO GALWAY, YESTERDAY

in the notes that were taken on the day Michael died.

“I want to know before I die where Michael is, I never in my life have forgotten him and I don’t close my eyes at night until I’ve said the rosary for him.

“I never saw his face. I had him and the doctor stood at the end of my bed and said, ‘The baby died’. He was gone then. They all just walked away with him.”

In 2014 it emerged that 796 children – aged between 35 foetal weeks and three years – were buried in a septic tank on the site of the former institutio­n.

Cabinet signed off on the longawaite­d Burials Bill, which will allow for the excavation of sites of former mother and baby institutio­ns, in February 2022.

Chrissie said: “I know that good people are trying to have that grave in Tuam opened. When I first heard about that I never thought my baby is in that site.

“It’s a pipe, a dirty old sewage pipe full of babies. Can you imagine that? It was only when I started reading more recently I said I’m going to have to say something.

“I went to the grave in Tuam for the first time at Christmas. I walked around wondering if Michael is there. I don’t know where he is.

“Is he in that grave? We don’t know because they haven’t opened it.

“I know those babies need my help and so do the families of those babies. I want to give support. I am not ashamed. I was not ashamed back then and I am not ashamed now. I never spoke of it because I didn’t want people asking me questions and pointing the finger. “My mother couldn’t send me anything when I was in Tuam in case the women in the Post Office were talking about me. It was a very clean building, the food was good and the place was spotless but the nuns, they were horrible. “They were not brides of Christ. They were bad people and they did nothing to help us.” Having suffered complicati­ons during labour at the age of 18 Chrissie was taken to the then Galway Central Hospital where her baby was stillborn.

Baby Michael, who was born on December 13, 1949, was taken from her after his arrival and she never saw him again.

There are no burial records for Michael in Bothermore cemetery where babies who died in the Central Hospital were buried.

There are also no records of Michael in the General Register because stillborn babies were not registered before 1950. Chrissie also had to make the painful request to Galway hospital to ask if her son had been experiment­ed on, like some of the children who died in Tuam, but she has received correspond­ence to state there are no records of Michael Tully in its laboratory. Chrissie fell pregnant again with her son Christophe­r who was born on August 5, 1954, and later adopted as Patrick Naughton. His records state he was adopted at six months, but Chrissie is adamant he was only six weeks old. She said “I never signed any adoption papers, I was in Tuam and a nun came holding him in her arms, and there was a woman behind her jumping up and down trying to see the baby and I said, ‘Is the baby OK?’ and she said nothing, she just walked away with him. I never saw him after that.”

Chrissie never married and had no other children. She and Patrick were reunited more than 10 years ago, after he came looking for her.

She said: “I am going to the Dail and I will stand there and demand that the Taoiseach come out to me and face me and give me a date for the excavation.”

 ?? ?? AWFUL ORDEAL Christina Tully from Co Galway
AWFUL ORDEAL Christina Tully from Co Galway
 ?? ?? GRIEVING 90-year-old Christina at Tuam site
GRIEVING 90-year-old Christina at Tuam site
 ?? ?? IN SPOTLIGHT Micheal Martin
IN SPOTLIGHT Micheal Martin

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