Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in County Galway, Ireland has a dark past. Photo / Supplied via motherandbabyhome.com
Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in County Galway, Ireland has a dark past. Photo / Supplied via motherandbabyhome.com
Infant remains have been found on the site of a former mother and baby home in Ireland.
Teams have been excavating in search of a suspected mass grave at the site of St Mary’s Home in Tuam, County Galway, which was run by the Bon Secours Sisters.
Seven sets ofskeletal remains were discovered.
Tests to establish how old they are will take at least three months. Radiocarbon dating will be carried out to establish whether they date from 1925 to 1961, when the institution for unmarried mothers and their children was open, or before then.
Over the past 200 years, the site was also used as a workhouse for nearly 80 years, until 1918, and a military barracks for seven years until 1925.
“Initial assessment indicates that these skeletal remains belong to infants and a full analysis will be carried out to estimate age at death,” said the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention in Tuam (ODAIT).
A shrine has been created at the former home where about 800 children are thought to have been bured. Photo / Wikipedia
In 2014, local historian Catherine Corless revealed that there were 796 death certificates for children and babies who died at the home but no burial records.
Investigators said they had found “significant quantities of human remains” in 2017, ranging from babies and toddlers in underground chambers at the site, which was owned by Galway County Council.
The realisation that hundreds of children almost certainly lay in an unmarked mass grave at the site made international headlines.
Ireland’s dark past
The Tuam babies scandal also forced Ireland to confront a dark past where unmarried mothers and their children were heavily stigmatised in the then deeply Catholic country.
After that government inquiry, a large-scale forensic exhumation was begun in July this year to give the children a proper burial.
ODAIT found the infant skeletal remains near an underground vaulted structure, which was indicated on workhouse plans.
That is a different location from the underground chambers where the other human remains were uncovered, but have not yet been exhumed.
Archaeologists using hand and machine digging have divided the site into sections to ensure nothing is missed.
Historic site
ODAIT said a further two sets of remains were found and thought to be from the time of the workhouse. Earlier in the excavation, five skeletons were found in the same place. The agency is working with the National Museum of Ireland on those remains.
The teams have also uncovered numerous other objects, such as an old Bovril jar, large amounts of animal bone thought to have been disposed of as cooking waste and a historic and rusted straight razor.
The discoveries were reported on Friday in ODAIT’s update on work carried out in the four weeks ending on October 29.
The effort to recover the almost 800 missing children and babies is expected to take two years.
ODAIT is also responsible for identifying any remains linked to the mother and baby home.
It will cross-reference DNA samples from the bones with those of survivors or descendants of those who died there.
The agency plans to contact people who have said they want to provide a DNA sample in the coming weeks.
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