HORRIFIC: Almost 800 Dead Babies Discovered Hidden in Catholic ‘Home’ for Unwed Mothers

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The discovery of one town’s dark history rocked the world, as the remains of hundreds of babies — some as old as three years old — has been revealed.

A historian named Catherine Corless is almost singlehandedly responsible for tracking down the identities of the children and their mothers, leading to the discovery of the secret tomb.

Just this week, excavations to exhume and corroborate the identities based on DNA analysis of the remains began… more than 10 years after Corless began her painstaking work to uncover the truth.

The mass grave contains the remains of what is expected to total approximately 800 bodies of children secretly buried at a “Home for Unwed Mothers”, operated by Catholic nuns in the Irish town of Tuam.

If the vast number of infant deaths and the secret disposal of their bodies wasn’t enough to create an outcry, the specific location of the burials certainly certainly has been:

As that news report indicated, the infant remains were disrespectfully discarded in what has been called a “septic tank” by some.

Others more accurately describe the location as being more akin to what would be referred to as a sewer tunnel system, as Peter Mulryan described:

Mulryan is a brother of one of the victims presumed to be buried at the site, and appeared in this report from the French Press Agency a few days ago, highlighting the story on the eve of today’s excavations.

(I would normally share that imbedded video report here, but the French Press Agency has much of it’s content coded in a way that effectively blocks it from being shared on most platforms.)

Work to excavate the site began Monday, as reported by the Associated Press:

Officials in Ireland began work Monday to excavate the site of a former church-run home for unmarried women and their babies to identify the remains of around 800 infants and young children who died there.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

Investigators later found a mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children in an underground sewage structure on the grounds of the home. DNA analysis found that the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years.

Daniel MacSweeney, who leads the exhumation of the babies’ remains at Tuam, said that survivors and family members will have an opportunity to view the works in coming weeks.

“This is a unique and incredibly complex excavation,” he said in a statement, adding that the memorial garden at the site will be under forensic control and closed to the public from Monday.

Corless’ work uncovering the true number of unreported burials behind the original facility brought her a lot of backlash throughout the years.

For a long time, her contentions that a mass grave existed was ridiculed and considered nothing but a hoax, according to this report from one Fox News affiliate:

Catherine Corless, the historian who found the gravesite of nearly 800 babies and children beneath an Irish home for unwed mothers, has dedicated more than 10 years of her life to this tragic discovery.

But in her hometown of Tuam, County Galway, and even abroad, she was ridiculed for her life’s work.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Corless recalled how people would cross the street to avoid her and complain to her relatives in supermarkets. Others called her “obsessive” and “delusional.”

“You’re about as credible as Santa Claus. You’re a disgrace,” a man wrote to Corless on June 15. “I hope those nuns bring you to court.”

This week, Corless was vindicated when crews finally began to excavate the septic tank where the babies’ bodies were buried. The unwed mothers home where the bodies were found was run by nuns.

Here’s a clip of from the Irish Times that includes Corless’ intention to do right by the victims, which will ultimately be a good thing for the town:

It is now known that facilities such as “The Home”, as it was called, were common in Ireland up until a few decades ago.

The Bon Secours “Home” in particular was operated by an order of nuns, and was publicly painted as a place where unwed mothers could go to have their children away from the scornful public shame they would face otherwise.

In reality of the facility and what went on there is much darker, as described in this report from the New York Post:

Many of the infant remains are feared to have been dumped in the cesspool known as “the pit” at the former institution in the small town of Tuam, County Galway, local historian Catherine Corless told Sky News.

In total, 798 children died at the home between 1925 and its closure in 1961, of which just two were buried in a nearby cemetery, Corless’ research found.

The other 796 children’s remains are believed to be under the site of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, which was demolished in 1971 and is now surrounded by a modern apartment complex.

Bon Secours, known locally as The Home, was a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children, run by a religious order of Catholic nuns.

Unmarried pregnant women would be sent to the home to give birth and would be interned for a year to do unpaid work.

They were separated from their newborn children, who would be raised by the nuns until they were adopted, often without the consent of their families.

It is expected to take up to two years to identify the remains of the infants and give them a dignified reburial and offer some degree of closure to survivors.

“I don’t care if it’s a thimbleful, as they tell me there wouldn’t be much remains left; at six months old, it’s mainly cartilage more than bone,” Annette McKay, whose sister is believed to be one of the 798 victims, told Sky News.

Her mother, Margaret “Maggie” O’Connor gave birth to a baby, Mary Margaret, at the home after she was raped at the age of 17.

The girl died six months later, and her mother only found out when a nun told her.

“She was pegging washing out and a nun came up behind her and said ‘the child of your sin is dead,’” said Annette, who now lives in the UK.

Bon Secours was just one institution that made up a network of oppression in Ireland, the true extent of which has only been revealed in recent years.

With excavations expected to go on for years with the painstaking intent of allowing families to give the victims proper burial, the town of Tuam will be able to put some degree of closure on this dark aspect of their past.

And the respect that should be shown for all human life, much less babies and children — image bearers of God Himself — will finally be afforded to these young victims.



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