'I couldn't give up on them': Catherine Corless as Tuam mother and baby excavation begins

After years of uncertainty, Monday, July 14, marks the beginning of a full excavation taking place at a former mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway. It is expected to go on for two years. 

The St Mary’s home for unmarried mothers and their children was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns and operated between 1925 and 1961. 

This news comes following the 2014 discovery of research led by local historian Catherine Corless which indicated that 796 babies and young children were buried in a sewage system at the institution.

The full-scale excavation of the site will try to identify the remains of these infants who died at the home during the time period it was open. 

In anticipation of this, an international team of experts joined Irish specialists ahead of the excavation of the mass grave. 

Personnel from Colombia, Spain, the UK, Canada and the US have joined the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention team in Tuam, Co Galway where pre-excavation work was taking place.

Now, the excavation works at the burial site will involve exhumation, analysis, identification if possible and re-interment of the remains.

Currently, a 2.4-metre-high hoarding has been installed around the perimeter and a restriction against flying drones over the site of the former mother and baby home has been put in place. 

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The site is also subject to security monitoring on a 24-hour basis to ensure the forensic integrity of the site. 

Speaking to the PA news agency, Catherine Corless said she found it “overwhelming” to see the excavation work proceed after her 10-year campaign.

“There was no will to do anything for those babies except leave them there and put a monument over them.

“But this was a sewer system and I couldn’t give up on them. They were all baptised, they deserve to be in consecrated ground.”

Ms Corless said it was a “huge relief” to be able to “let go and back off” after being faced with obstacles in her campaign from people she initially thought would be helpful. 

“It is huge for me to know those babies are finally going to get the dignity they deserve – it is a wrong put right," she concluded. 

In 2021, then-Taoiseach Micheál Martin delivered an apology on behalf of the State for the treatment of women and children who were housed in mother and baby homes across Ireland.

The Bon Secours Sisters also offered a “profound apology” after acknowledging the order had “failed to protect the inherent dignity” of women and children in the Tuam home.