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Image of the site taken last month. RollingNews.ie

Full-scale excavation at former mother and baby home in Tuam gets underway

The dig is anticipated to last two years.

LAST UPDATE | 14 Jul

A FULL-SCALE excavation of a site at a former mother and baby in Co Galway has gotten underway today, aimed at identifying the remains of infants who died at the institution between 1925 and 1961.

Research led by local historian Catherine Corless in 2014 indicated that 796 babies and young children were buried in the sewage system at the St Mary’s mother and baby institution in Tuam across that period.

The work at the burial site, which is being undertaken by the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention Tuam, will involve exhumation, analysis, identification if possible and re-interment of the remains at the site.

Work began at the site last month when it was surrounded by a 2.4-metre-high hoarding, and set up for security monitoring on a 24-hour basis to ensure the forensic integrity of the site during the excavation. The dig is anticipated to last two years.

Experts from international institutions have arrived at Tuam in recent weeks to assist with the excavation. Global best-practices will be used to search, recover, separate, sort, age and identify the skeletal remains at the site.

This will allow for the individualisation of each set of remains, and it is hoped that identification of some of those buried can take place with the assistance of DNA provided by families as well as other records.

Campaigner Anne Corrigan, who believes that both of her brothers, John and William, were unceremoniously buried at the site, has said that today’s development is welcome and difficult.

Corrigan said she will not rest until she sees justice for her siblings.

Her legal representative and human rights solicitor Kevin Winters, said that she “like so many others, has waited a long time for this moment” and that it was an “intensely emotional” day.

Winters said it was also frustrating given because of a sense of “unfinished business”, explaining that there needs to be an inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death of Annie’s siblings and all the other unexplained deaths.

“She welcomes the excavation work, which is likely to take anything up to two years to complete, and sees today as an opportunity to again call upon the Irish Government to engage on unresolved legal issues connected to the recovery process.

Excavation ‘step towards restoring dignity’

The commencement of excavation work today at the site of the former mother and baby institution in Tuam represents an important milestone in the long campaign for truth and justice, according to Social Democrats TD Aidan Farrelly.

Farrelly, who is the party’s spokesperson on children, said today’s work is a “significant step towards restoring the dignity” of the almost 800 babies and infants who died at the institution.

The Kildare North TD paid tribute to the “tireless work and dedication” of Corless for undertaking the work to reveal “this dark stain on our history”.

The excavation team has a €9.4m budget for 2025, with further allocations yet to be finalised by the Department of Public Expenditure.

The St Mary’s institution for unmarried mothers and their children was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns, who apologised to women and their families after the discovery.

Then-Taoiseach Micheál Martin apologised to victims on behalf of the state in 2021.

With reporting by Eoghan Dalton and PA

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