Between 1925 and 1961, 796 babies and children were interred in the septic tank and grounds of a home for unwed mothers in Tuam, Ireland. The word Tuam is derived from a Latin term for burial mound. The formal name for the home was the ‘St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home. It was run by nuns from the Bon Secours order. The home was known as one of the ‘Magdalene Laundries.’
These homes were often run by the Catholic Church, under poor conditions. The church worked with the Irish government. Thousands of women and children died at these sites.
During the time, Ireland was dominated by the Catholic Church. Pregnancy outside marriage was considered sinful and shameful. Women were sent to these homes to give birth. Many of the properties also operated as commercial laundromats, hence why they were often called ‘Magdalene Laundries.’
Women went into the facility and then gave birth. They were then forced to leave without their babies. Some of the children were sent into foster care, but many of them went missing.
The buildings were primitive, poorly heated, and had running water only in the kitchen and maternity ward. Large dormitories housed upward of 200 children and 100 mothers at a time.
The facility in Tuam existed and ran from the 1920’s to 1961.
A 1947 inspection record provided insights into a crowded and deadly environment.
Twelve of 31 infants in a nursery were emaciated. Other children were described as “delicate,” “wasted,” or with “wizened limbs.”
One of the babies that was born there, John Dolan, weighed almost 9 pounds when he was born but was described as “a miserable, emaciated child with voracious appetite and no control over his bodily functions, probably mental[ly] defective”. He died two months later in a measles outbreak.
Despite a high death rate, the report said infants were well cared for and diets were excellent.
In the 1930s and 1940s, more than 40 per cent of children died some years in the homes before their first birthday.
Tuam recorded the highest death percentage before closing in 1961. Nearly a third of the children died there.
After the home closed, it was demolished and replaced with a housing estate.
In the 1970’s, some children were playing in the area. One boy named Franny Hopkins described falling into a hole in the ground behind the home and finding himself surrounded by skeletons. “There was just a jumble of bones,” Franny said. “We didn’t know if we’d found a treasure or a nightmare.”
Authorities took no action at the time and suggested that the remains may have been from the 1840s famine in which approximately 1 million Irish people died from starvation.
A local historian named Catherine Corless decided to write an article about the site for the local historical society. “I thought I was doing a nice story about orphans and all that, and the more I dug, the worse it was getting,” Catherine said.
Catherine began to investigate public records and realised how many children had gone missing at this one facility. The Bon Secours order tried to fob her off. Despite this, Catherine obtained death certificates and information about the septic tank.
The Bon Secours sisters hired public relations consultant Terry Prone, who tried to steer journalists away.
“If you come here, you’ll find no mass grave,” she said in an email to a French TV company. “No evidence that children were ever so buried, and a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying, ‘Yeah, a few bones were found — but this was an area where famine victims were buried. So?'”
DNA samples of the remains were taken in 2016 and it was confirmed that they dated to the timing of the Bon Secours occupancy of the site.
Catherine said that the children were often starving and neglected.
“The children were treated as commodities. The prettier babies were set up for adoption – it was a money-making racket. The sicker ones were put away and allowed to die.”
In 2017, the Irish Prime Minister called the septic tank at the site ‘a chamber of horrors.’
Pope Francis acknowledged the scandal during his 2018 visit to Ireland when he apologised for church “crimes” that included child abuse and forcing unmarried mothers to give up their children.
The Bon Secours sisters offered a profound apology and acknowledged that children were disrespectfully buried.
“We failed to respect the inherent dignity of the women and children,” Sister Eileen O’Connor said. “We failed to offer them the compassion that they so badly needed.”
In 2021, a 2,865 page report into the network of ‘mother and baby homes’ was published by a judicial commission.
“The regime described in the report wasn’t imposed on us by any foreign power,” the taoiseach (tee -shuhk) (Prime Minister), Micheál Martin, told a news conference. “We did this to ourselves as a society. We treated women exceptionally badly, we treated children exceptionally badly.
Ireland had a completely warped attitude to sexuality and intimacy, he said. “Young mothers and their sons and daughters were forced to pay a terrible price for that dysfunction. As a society we embraced judgmental, moral certainty, a perverse religious morality and control which was so damaging. What was so very striking was the absence of basic kindness.”
About 56,000 women and 57,000 children were placed or born into the homes from 1922 until the last one shut in 1998. Other countries had similar institutions but the per capita numbers in Ireland were probably the highest in the world, the commission found.
It estimated 9,000 children, 15% of the total, died – an “appalling” infant mortality rate about double the national average. Neglect, poor food and extreme austerity all played a part. Instead of saving the lives of children legally deemed illegitimate, the homes “significantly reduced their prospects of survival”.
The investigation also found that there was an underground structure divided into 20 chambers of a disused septic tank at the Tuam site. Each contained ‘significant quantities of human remains.’
Investigators also found infant remains at the Sean Ross home in County Tipperary. Unlike in Tuam, the children had coffins. “All individuals were less than one years old. The skeletal remains of 21 individuals were uncovered in situ. The remains of a further 11 coffins, indicating undisturbed burials, were evident.”
In 2023, Catherine went to the site. “They are two-feet down from where we are standing,” she said. “The bones have mingled together and water got in and thrashed them around. But they’re there.”
Catherine said that there are no burial records for the site. She also spoke about why the children were put into the septic tank.
“It became a handy way to dispose of them,” Catherine the Observer. “They didn’t have to account for the deaths. They didn’t want anyone to know. All this time those poor little remains were disintegrating.”
Plans were made to start recovering the remains.
“There has been nothing on this scale before in Ireland,” Roderic O’Gorman, the children’s minister, said in an interview in 2023. “This will be one of the most complex operations of its kind in the world.”
The age of the remains, the fact they are children and have been exposed to water will complicate analysis and identification. The excavation team will be independent but is legally obliged to use advanced techniques to match DNA samples with living relatives, said Roderic. “Anything that can be done will be done.”
The goal is to give a respectful burial to all the remains, he said. “I’ve always regarded Tuam as a stain on our national conscience. The fact that infant remains were treated so callously even in death is deeply disturbing.”
Catherine said “Let them rest in peace? It was a sewage facility – get them out of there. Let’s expose the raw truth of what happened. You have to unearth the whole place to undo the damage. The people of Ireland need to know what happened.”
In July 2025, excavation began at the site. Authorities used ground-penetrating radar, bulldozers and diggers to unearth the remains of the 796 babies and children.
It is believed that the excavation will take about two years. Forensic scientists and archaeologists will collect and sort the remains and then use DNA to try to match them with relatives. It is thought that follow up working will continue for an additional three years.
Dig director Daniel MacSweeney, who previously worked for the International Committee of Red Cross to identify missing persons in conflict zones in Afghanistan and Lebanon, said it was a uniquely difficult undertaking.
“We cannot underestimate the complexity of the task before us, the challenging nature of the site, as you will see, the age of the remains, the location of the burials, the dearth of information about these children and their lives,” Daniel said.
Anna Corrigan had two brothers who were born in the institution.
She said the start of the excavation was “both welcome and difficult”.
“While it’s a relief to see work started on the site, it’s really only the latest stage in what is still a long road for all of us,” she said.
“I won’t rest until I see justice for my two brothers who not only need a proper Christian burial but also the full rigours of the law applied.”
Nearly 100 people, some from the US, Britain, Australia, and Canada, have either provided DNA or contacted them about doing so.
The Bon Secours religious order has made a contribution of £2.14m towards the cost of the excavation.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/ireland-report-appalling-abuse-mother-baby-homes
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0vr055dj0o