Calls for inquiry into Irish homes
Horror over mass grave for children at Catholic shelter
DUBLIN // Women’s groups are calling for former Roman Catholic-run homes for unmarried mothers to be investigated after a mass grave containing the remains of dozens of babies and young children was discovered at one of the homes.
About 800 children died at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in the town of Tuam, in County Galway in western Ireland, according to death certificates discovered by historian Catherine Corless.
A spokesman for a coalition of survivors from the home said the discovery of the mass grave was “the tip of the iceberg”. Roman Catholic orders ran homes well into the 1990s across Ireland. Pregnant girls sent there often suffered harsh treatment at the hands of the nuns who believed that sex outside marriage was a sin. The Tuam home, run by the Bon Secours order of nuns, opened in 1925 and closed in 1961.
Investigators said “significant quantities” of remains found in 17 of 20 underground chambers were examined.
Although the deaths of these children were not suspicious, the casual disposal of their bodies horrified Ireland.
“Today is about remembering and respecting the dignity of the children who lived their short lives in this home,” Katherine Zappone, minister for children and youth affairs, said on Friday.
“We will honour their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately.”
No record exists of the number of women who passed through the home.
The nuns helped to deliver the babies, who would be raised elsewhere until they could be adopted.
But the babies and children who died at the home were buried in these crypt-like chambers.
DNA analysis confirmed that the discovered remains were those of children between the ages of 35 weeks and three years, investigators said.
“It’s horrific what they did,” Ms Corless said.
After the Tuam home closed in 1961, it lay vacant until its demolition in 1972 to make way for a housing estate.
The first signs of the mass grave were spotted in 1975 when two boys, who were playing in a field on the site of the home, found skeletons in a hollow covered by a concrete slab. But no investigation was conducted at the time.
Ms Corless was familiar with the town’s stories about the deaths of children at the home. But she could find no records documenting their burials.
In 2011, she began to source death certificates for every child who died at the home. She paid €4 to the county registry office for each certificate copy. In all, she procured 796 certificates and they revealed the children had died of measles, tuberculosis, pneumonia or simply malnutrition.
With other townsfolk, Ms Corless began to raise money to build a memorial for the children who had died at the home.
In 2014, the Irish government appointed a Mother and Baby Homes commission to investigate other such homes across the country.
The commission established that babies and children were buried in the 20 chambers that were originally used to treat sewage.
The Bon Secours order, which is still operational and runs hospitals, issued a statement after the commission’s revelations.
“On the closing of the home in 1961, all the records for the home were returned to Galway County Council, who are the owners and occupiers of the lands of the home,” it said. “We can therefore make no comment on today’s announcement, other than to confirm our continued cooperation with and support for the work of the com- mission in seeking the truth about the home.”
P J Haverty, who grew up in the home and was placed in foster care at the age of six, called the facility “a prison”.
“There was no love, no nothing,” said Mr Haverty, who wants the Roman Catholic Church and the government to apologise for the way he and others in the home were treated.
Ms Corless said the government needed to contact any former resident of the home who was still alive “because it is their families that are buried there”. The bones of the children should be exhumed and buried in Tuam’s main graveyard, she said. “At least we know this now,” she said. “It is a huge step forward. We know they’re there.”