800 Skeletons of Babies Found inside Septic Tank at Former Irish Home for Unwed Mothers: Report

By Carol Kuruvilla
New York Daily News
June 3, 2014

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mass-grave-800-skeletons-babies-found-irish-home-unwed-mothers-article-1.1815381

Rejected in life, these children were forgotten in death.

An Irish historian claims a septic tank in her town contains the skeletons of nearly 800 babies who had the misfortune of being born to single moms during a time when out-of-wedlock pregnancy was tantamount to a crime.

Residents of Tuam, County Galway, have long suspected that the illegitimate children who died at the former home for “fallen women” were secretly buried nearby. But it wasn’t until Catherine Corless did some historical digging that she realized the sheer size of this mass grave.

After looking through local death registries, she now suspects 796 children were wrapped in plain shrouds and dropped into the concrete septic tank. There were no coffins to hold their little bodies, and their final resting place was unmarked and unconsecrated for decades.

“I could not believe it. I was dumbfounded and deeply upset,” Corless told Irish Central. “There’s nothing to say it’s a massive children’s graveyard.”

Nicknamed the “The Home,” the institution was managed by the Bon Secours sisters between 1925 and 1961. Hundreds of young women and their illegitimate children were sent to live in The Home during this time. The mothers paid the price for their sins by working as indentured servants.

“When daughters became pregnant, they were ostracized completely,” Corless told the Washington Post. “Families would be afraid of neighbors finding out, because to get pregnant out of marriage was the worst thing on Earth. It was the worst crime a woman could commit, even though a lot of the time it had been because of a rape.”

The children who were born to these women were either adopted out and away from their mothers, or kept in The Home, neglected and stigmatized by the local community.

A 1944 local health board report described the deplorable conditions at The Home. The report recorded 333 residents — 271 children and 61 single moms — even though the building had a capacity of 243.

The mothers would eventually leave to start new lives in other parts of Ireland. But the children reportedly suffered from long-term neglect. The report found them “emaciated,” “pot-bellied,” “fragile” and with “flesh hanging loosely on limbs,” according to Irish Central.

Corless remembers seeing the “Home Babies” when she was a child. She says they were relegated to the fringes of school classrooms and mocked by other students — including herself.

“That has stuck with me all my life. A part of me wants to make up to them,” she said.

She is now raising funds for a memorial bronze plaque that she hopes will list the names of all 796 children.

“I do blame the Catholic Church,” says Corless. “I blame the families as well but people were afraid of the parish priest. I think they were brainwashed. I suppose the lesson is not to be hiding things. To face up to reality.”