IRELAND
BBC News
The echo of hobnail boots coming down the road was the signal that the “home babies” of Tuam were heading to school.
Kevin Dwyer grew up close to the high walls of the mother and baby home in County Galway, where the remains of up to 800 babies and children have been uncovered in a mass unmarked grave.
The illegitimate children of so-called “unmarried mothers” were, he said, considered “the children of sin”.
They were “the devil’s children, they weren’t encouraged to mix”.
The children are believed to have died from natural causes, but the search for their remains has raised questions about the living conditions and practices within such Church-run institutions.
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