The Irish government announced last Tuesday that it will take another step toward reckoning with one of the darker remnants of the nation’s past. Minister for Children Katherine Zappone said that, after legislation passes through the parliament, they will officially commence to excavate of the site of the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam. The house used to host unmarried mothers and their children between 1925 and 1961, a time when the former were shunned by the staunchly Catholic society.
From 2011 to 2013, Catherine Corless, a local Tuam historian, uncovered the death records for 796 infants who had passed away at the home. Corless was not, however, able to find any correlating burial records. She then reached the conclusion that those children might have been buried at a mass grave near the home, which some locals previously believed to be a burial ground from the Great Famine, which plagued Ireland in the mid-19th century.
Last year, test excavations overseen by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation revealed “significant quantities” of human remains on the site. Soon, this work will continue in full force. The excavation will include locating and exhuming as many remains as possible, forensic analysis in order to allow for potential identification, respectfully reburying the remains, and appropriately memorializing and conserving the site.
According to the Irish Times, the process for implementing the required legislation will begin next year, at the earliest. Zappone acknowledged that it will take longer than the government initially anticipated, due to the situation’s complex and unprecedented nature. Corless, who has led the campaign for a proper excavation over the past few years, reacted positively to the announcement and said that it “was more than we expected.”
“It’s a huge statement for people who carried the stigma of illegitimacy with them all their life,” she said on RTÉ radio. “They were [considered] lesser people and to see our government just trying to make reparations for what happened . . . it gives them a new status. And it is a healing for them and that is what I have been campaigning for all along.”
The Bon Secours Sisters, the religious order which ran the home, have contributed 2.5 million Euros to the operation.
PHOTO: Tuam Catholic Cemetery. Source: James Shield / Flickr. Filed under CC.
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