Claim of 800 children's remains buried at Irish home for unwed mothers

Historian says death records show bodies of children who died at home in Tuam, County Galway, were interred at unmarked site

theguardian.com, Staff and agencies in Dublin, Wednesday 4 June 2014

Hundreds of children were buried in unmarked graves at an home in Galway,
 Ireland, for unwed mothers and their children, a historian has said. Photograph:
Tom Bean/Corbis

The Catholic church in Ireland is facing fresh accusations of child neglect after a researcher found records for hundreds of children said to be buried in unmarked graves at the site of a former home for unwed mothers.

The researcher, Catherine Corless, has said her discovery of child death records from the home run by Catholic nuns in Tuam, County Galway, suggested that many of the children's remains lie in the site of an old septic tank.

Church leaders in Galway, western Ireland, have said they had no idea so many children who died at the orphanage had been buried there, and have pledged to support local efforts to mark the spot with a plaque listing all 796 children.

County Galway death records showed that the children, mostly babies and toddlers, had died, often of sickness or disease, during the 35 years the home operated from 1926 to 1961, according to Corless's research. The building, which had previously been a workhouse for homeless adults, was torn down decades ago to make way for houses.

A 1944 government inspection recorded evidence of malnutrition among some of the 271 children then living in the Tuam orphanage alongside 61 unwed mothers. The death records cited sicknesses, diseases, deformities and premature births as causes. In the first half of the 20th century Ireland had one of the worst infant mortality rates in Europe, with tuberculosis rife.

Corless said the burial site had been rediscovered by local people in past decades. Residents have kept the grass trimmed and built a small grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary said he would meet leaders of the religious order that ran the home, the Bon Secours Sisters, to organise fundraising for a plaque listing the 796 names and to hold a memorial service there.

Corless and other Tuam activists have organised a committee to erect a monument to the dead and push for a state-funded investigation and excavation of the site.

The Irish government has declined to comment. Ireland has published four major investigations into child abuse and its cover-up in Catholic parishes and a network of children's industrial schools, the last of which closed in the 1990s.

The Associated Press contributed to this report