Excavation of site of mass grave at former Irish mother-and-baby home in Tuam to begin in 2019

It has been announced that the excavation of a site at the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam in Co Galway is set to begin in the latter stages of 2019. The Tuam mother-and-baby home operated from 1925 to 1961 and was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Roman Catholic nuns, Unwed pregnant women were sent to the Home to give birth. It is thought that hundreds of babies are buried at the site after significant quantities of human remains were discovered there in 2016 and 2017. Local amateur historian, Catherine Corless, published an article in 2012 giving a history of the home and later uncovered the names of the children who died there. In 2014 Anna Corrigan found the inspection reports of the home. They told an horrific story, with most commonly recorded causes of death among the infants being congenital debilities, infectious diseases and malnutrition. The research by Catherine Corless led her to conclude that almost all had been buried in an unmarked grave with an estimation that nearly 800 children had died at the home. In October 2018, the Irish government announced that it would introduce legislation to facilitate a full excavation of the mass grave and site, and for forensic DNA testing to be carried out on the remains.  It is also beleived that up to 1,000 children had been sent from the Home for illegal adoptions in the United States, without their mothers' consent.

Tuam was not the only such establishment in Ireland. The last of the Mother and Baby homes was closed in 1996. The truth of these terrible institutions continues to be revealed. They were usually run by religious orders but supported by the state, at a time when the Catholic church had almost unchallenged power in Ireland. They housed so-called "fallen" women who were branded as both a mother and a criminal if they happened to have a child outside of marriage. At the time there was no social welfare provision and many women had little choice but to go into these mother and child homes, which were run like punishment hostels for unmarried pregnant women. Their children were taken for adoption, fostering or into the industrial schools, or they died in their thousands, of malnutrition and neglect. For decades the survivors demands have been ignored by the Irish state and Catholic church and they were denied their birth records and medical histories. As with the case of Tuam, demands for an end to this cover-up continues. The whole matter also points to the danger of any state, anywhere in the world, being dominated by religion, regardless of what brand that religion is. There are many examples.