Mass grave 'containing the skeletons of 800 babies' at site of Irish home for unmarried mothers

The bodies of nearly 800 babies are believed to have been interred in a concrete tank beside a former home for unmarried mothers.

The dead babies are thought to have been secretly buried beside a home for single mothers and their children in County Galway, Ireland, over a period of 36 years.

It is suspected that 796 children were interred on unconsecrated ground without headstones or coffins next to the home run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam between 1925 and 1961.

Newly unearthed reports show that they suffered malnutrition and neglect, which caused the deaths of many, while others died of measles, convulsions, TB, gastroenteritis and pneumonia.

The babies were usually buried in a plain shroud without a coffin in a plot that had housed a water tank attached to the workhouse that preceded the mother and child home.

No memorial was erected to the dead children and the grave was left unmarked.

The site is now surrounded by a housing estate.  But a missing persons report just filed to Irish police, gardai, means that the burial site may now be excavated.

A relative of one boy who lived there, William Joseph Dolan, has made a formal complaint to gardai after she failed to find his death certificate, despite records in the home stating that he had died.

A source close to the investigation said: 'No-one knows the total number of babies in the grave. 

There are 796 death records but they are only the ones we know of.

'God knows who else is in the grave. It's been lying there for years and no-one knows the full extent or total of bodies down there.'

The existence of the grave was uncovered by local woman Catherine Corless, who compiled the records of 796 babies who died at the home.  She has established a group called the Children's Home Graveyard Committee to erect a memorial.

She said: 'People who had relations there are the most interested.  They are delighted something is being done.

'When I was doing the research, someone mentioned there was a graveyard there for babies but I found out there was more to it than that.'

With the help of the Births and Deaths Registrar in Galway, Mrs Corless researched all children whose place of death was marked 'Children's Home, Tuam'.  Galway County Council has all the cemetery books for Mayo and Galway, and with the help of the archivist there, Mrs Corless cross-checked the grave records.

Dailym