DUBLIN — The local historian had been telling the authorities for years that dead infants might have been buried in an old sewage system on the grounds of a former home for unmarried mothers and their children in the west of
Little attention was paid to her claims at first, but the questions eventually led to the establishment of a state-financed investigation. And on Friday, the investigators said that the remains of babies, small children and fetuses had been found where she said they would.
The discovery, in the County Galway town of Tuam, was announced on the website of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. “The commission is shocked by this discovery and is continuing its investigation into who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way,” the agency said in a statement.
From 1925 to 1961, the St. Mary’s home was run by the Sisters of Bon Secours, a Roman Catholic order, but was financed by the Irish government. Tests showed that most of the remains were “likely to date from the 1950s,” according to the statement, which added that further examinations were being conducted.
DUBLIN — The local historian had been telling the authorities for years that dead infants might have been buried in an old sewage system on the grounds of a former home for unmarried mothers and their children in the west of Ireland.
Little attention was paid to her claims at first, but the questions eventually led to the establishment of a state-financed investigation. And on Friday, the investigators said that the remains of babies, small children and fetuses had been found where she said they would.
The discovery, in the County Galway town of Tuam, was announced on the website of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. “The commission is shocked by this discovery and is continuing its investigation into who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way,” the agency said in a statement.
From 1925 to 1961, the St. Mary’s home was run by the Sisters of Bon Secours, a Roman Catholic order, but was financed by the Irish government. Tests showed that most of the remains were “likely to date from the 1950s,” according to the statement, which added that further examinations were being conducted.
“This is very sad and disturbing news,” Katherine Zappone, the minister for Children and Youth Affairs, said in a statement. “It was not unexpected as there were claims about human remains on the site over the last number of years. Up to now we had rumors.”
The historian, Catherine Corless, said in an interview that she welcomed the commission’s report but thought the deaths should have been investigated “decades earlier.”
“Nobody was listening locally or in authority, from the church or the state. They said, ‘What’s the point?’ And that I shouldn’t view the past from today’s lenses.”
The remains are of some of the 796 children who died at the home over more than three decades. According to death certificates that Ms. Corless hunted down, the causes included malnutrition, measles, tuberculosis, gastroenteritis and pneumonia.
The commission that was established in 2015 to investigate allegations of abuse in the institutions, which are known in Ireland as mother and baby homes, said its inquiry in Tuam focused on two structures on the grounds of St. Mary’s.
The first of these structures appeared to be “a large sewage containment system or septic tank that had been decommissioned and filled with rubble and debris and then covered with topsoil,” while the second was “a long structure which is divided into 20 chambers and appears to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water.”
It was within this second structure that the commission reported that “significant quantities of human remains had been found in at least 17 of the 20 underground chambers.”
According to the statement, the remains included those of 35-week-old fetuses to children up to 3 years old.
Further tests are now being conducted and the commission has asked that the relevant state authorities take responsibility for the “appropriate treatment” of the remains. A coroner had also been informed, the statement added.
Although there is no official state religion in Ireland, the Catholic Church has long had a profound influence over the country’s culture and government. Bearing a child outside of marriage was considered both sinful and shameful, and unmarried mothers and their children often suffered discrimination and abuse.
Ms. Corless, who lives outside Tuam, went to school with children from the St. Mary’s home and remembered how they were kept to one side of the classroom and had to arrive and leave at different times so there would no interaction with children of parents who were married.
She said the “home babies,” as they were known, looked vulnerable and malnourished to her. When her own children were more grown up, she began to look into conditions at the home, and learned of the 796 deaths. None of the bodies were buried in any of the local cemeteries.
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She also concluded that the children lived in substandard conditions. After the home finally closed, the buildings were demolished, and now a housing development sits adjacent to the site.
In 2012, Ms. Corless published an article in a local history journal. The article concluded that some of the children had been buried in an unofficial graveyard in the back of the home. But after studying a map of the grounds, she thought that other bodies might have been interred in the sewage treatment facilities.
A sewage tank had been replaced by a public water system in 1937, but she said there was sufficient evidence to show that some babies and small children had been buried there while it was still in operation.
Ms. Corless wanted to erect a plaque with the names of all of the children who had died, and she helped up set a committee in 2013 to finance it. The committee was unable to raise enough money.
She also approached journalists with her work. In 2014, Alison O’Reilly, a reporter for the Irish edition of The Mail on Sunday, a London newspaper, wrote an article.
But as it spread and was picked up by other news organizations, headlines shouted that “800 bodies” had been thrown into the septic tank. That led to criticism, and some said they found discrepancies in Ms. Corless’s work.
She said on Friday that that had been difficult but that she had known she was right. “I never made a statement unless I could back it with facts. I only presented the truth.”
On Friday, the Bon Secours order issued a statement that promised its “continued cooperation with and support for the work of the commission in seeking the truth about the home.”
The order declined further comment.
For years, there had been accounts of abuse at many mother and baby homes and the government agreed to begin an inquiry. The homes attracted international attention after the release of the film “Philomena,” which told the story of a woman’s search for the boy who was taken from her and was adopted by a couple in the United States.
The commission has been examining allegations of abuse at 14 mother and baby homes, and four similar institutions between 1922 and 1998. But it has no power to award compensation or bring criminal charges.
Ms. Corless added that it was important now that the investigation continued its work, and that “it needs to go further inside.”
The commission’s announcement marked another development in a series of scandals involving church and state in Irish life.
The director of Amnesty International Ireland, Colm O’Gorman, who himself experienced clerical abuse, said it was time for the government to “join the dots.”
“There is a direct line between the industrial schools, the mother and baby homes and the abuse committed and covered up by priests,” he said. “The state never really accepted that it had accountability or responsibility when it came to their own citizens, so it outsourced all of that to the church.”
In the interview on Friday, Ms. Corless said that Ms. Zappone, the minister for children, had telephoned her earlier in the day and thanked her for her work and perseverance.
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