Infant remains found under home for unwed mothers
Irish historian’s long-disputed work confirmed by gruesome discovery in old sewage system
The local historian had been telling authorities for years that dead infants might have been buried in an old sewage system on the grounds of a former home in the west of Ireland for unmarried mothers and their children.
Little attention was paid to her claims at first, but the questions eventually led to the establishment of a state-financed investigation. And on Friday, the investigators said that the remains of babies, small children and fetuses had been found where she said they would.
The discovery, in the County Galway town of Tuam, was announced on the website of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. “The commission is shocked by this discovery and is continuing its investigation into who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way,” the agency said in a statement.
From 1925-61, the St. Mary’s home was run the Sisters of Bon Secours, a Roman Catholic order, but was financed by the Irish government. Tests showed that most of the remains were “likely to date from the 1950s,” according to the statement, which added that further examinations were being conducted.
“This is very sad and disturbing news,” Katherine Zappone, minister for Children and Youth Affairs, said in a statement. “It was not unexpected as there were claims about human remains on the site over the last number of years. Up to now we had rumors.”
The historian, Catherine Corless, said in an interview that she welcomed the commission’s report but thought the deaths should have been investigated “decades earlier.”
“Nobody was listening locally or in authority, from the church or the state. They said ‘What’s the point?’ and that I shouldn’t view the past from today’s lenses.”
The remains are of some of the 796 children who died at the home over more than three decades. According to death certificates that Corless hunted down, the causes including malnutrition, measles, tuberculosis, gastroenteritis and pneumonia.
The commission that was established in 2015 to investigate allegations of abuse in the institutions, which are known in Ireland as mother and baby homes, said its inquiry in Tuam focused on two structures on the grounds of St. Mary’s.
The first of these structures appeared to be “a large sewage containment system or septic tank that had been decommissioned and filled with rubble and debris and then covered with topsoil,” while the second was “a long structure which is divided into 20 chambers and appears to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water.” It was within this second structure that the commission reported that “significant quantities of human remains had been found in at least 17 of the 20 underground chambers.” According to the statement, the remains included those of 35-week-old fetuses to children up to 3 years old.
Further tests are being conducted and the commission has asked that relevant state authorities take responsibility for the “appropriate treatment” of the remains. A coroner had also been informed, the statement added.
Although there is no official state religion in Ireland, the Catholic Church has had a profound influence over the nation’s culture and government. Bearing a child outside of marriage was considered sinful and shameful, and unmarried mothers and their children often suffered discrimination and abuse.
Corless, who lives outside Tuam, went to school with children from the St. Mary’s home and remembered how they were kept to one side of the classroom and had to arrive and leave at different times so there would be no interaction with children of parents who were married.
She said the “home babies,” as they were known, looked vulnerable and malnourished. When her own children were more grown up, she began to look into conditions at the home, and learned of the 796 deaths. None of the bodies were buried in any of the local cemeteries.
Corless wanted to erect a plaque with the names of all the children who had died and she helped set up a committee in 2013 to finance it. The committee was unable to raise enough money.
She also approached journalists with her work. In 2014, Alison O’Reilly, a reporter for the Irish edition of the Mail on Sunday, a London newspaper, wrote an article.
But as it spread and was picked up by other news organizations, headlines shouted that “800 bodies” had been thrown into the septic tank. That led to criticism.
She said Friday that that had been difficult but she had known she was right. “I never made a statement unless I could back it with facts. I only presented the truth.”