IRELAND
New York Daily News
BY CAROL KURUVILLA
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 3, 2014
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.”
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