Excavations Begin at Mass Baby Grave in Ireland

Excavations began Monday at an unmarked mass grave at a former institution for unmarried mothers in western Ireland, believed to hold the remains of hundreds of infants and young children, CBS News reported.  

The probe, expected to take two years to complete, started 11 years after amateur historian Catherine Corless found evidence of a mass grave at the city of Tuam. She discovered death certificates for 796 babies and children who lived in the institution but whose burial records were missing, the BBC wrote. 

Following those findings, test excavations in 2016 and 2017 revealed numerous remains of infants in abandoned underground chambers of a disused sewage system, now surrounded by a housing complex. 

The discovery had shocked Ireland, even though the country has long grappled with its treatment of unwed mothers in state and church run institutions in the 20th century. These homes existed across the country, some remaining open as late as 1998. 

The leader of the excavation, Daniel MacSweeney, defined the process as “unique and incredibly complex,” given that the remains are mixed together. The group will use different methods to attempt to put the remains back together and, if possible, identify them.  

Many have provided DNA samples, hoping to identify their relatives. 

The home for unwed mothers and their babies in Tuam was run by Catholic nuns and operated between 1925 and 1961, housing women who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock and been cut off from their families as a consequence.  

It was owned by the Galway County Council. 

Despite records marking the deaths of infants in the institutions, some lack official death certificates.  

After birth, some children lived in the home but the majority were put up for adoption under a system in which the church and the government often cooperated. 

One family member, Anna Corrigan, said she had two brothers who were born in the institution but has been struggling to find out what happened to them and has asked the Irish police to investigate. 

A certificate from 1947 reports “measles” and “congenital idiot” as causes of death for one of Corrigan’s brothers. “I contended that he died of neglect and malnutrition,” Corrigan told the BBC. “After my mother left the home, she sent the nuns five shillings a month for his upkeep. So how did it come to this?”