800 Bodies Of Dead Babies Found In Septic Tank Of Home For Unwed Mothers (VIDEO)

children at the home
A 1924 photo of children at the home. Credit: Connaught Tribune, 1924, via Twitter (Limerick1914)

A local historian discovered 796 bodies of infants and young children no older than eight years old buried in a mass grave next to a home for unwed mothers in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. The bodies were placed inside a septic tank, apparently by employees of the home, which was operated by Catholic nuns between 1925 and 1961.

Historian Catherine Corless says that the septic tank was discovered in 1975, when concrete slabs covering the tank began to disintegrate. Two boys playing near the site found the slabs, broke through them, and found a hole “filled to the brim with bones.” Locals had believed that the remains had belonged to victims of the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, until Corless proved otherwise. She found records proving that the septic tank had been deliberately chosen as the final resting place for the dead children.

The home was named St. Mary’s, and was operated by the Bons Secours Sisters. It was one of a number of such “homes for unwed mothers” operated by the Catholic Church in Ireland at the time. Unmarried mothers were labeled “fallen women” and ostracized by Catholic society. Many of them were forcibly sent to the homes, where they bore their children. Often, the children were taken away from the mothers and adopted without the mothers’ consent. The women were forced to work at “The Home,” as it was called, for free for as long as three years. They were given uniforms and even given new names. The practice was the Catholic sect’s way of punishing them for their out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

Corless recalls going to school with the “Home” children, which they called “the Home Babies.” “If you acted up in class, some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies,” she says. She remembers one instance where a schoolmate wrapped a small rock in a bright candy wrapper and gave it to one of the Home children as a “gift.” Corless recalls:

When the child opened it, she saw she’d been fooled. Of course, I copied her later and I tried to play the joke on another little Home girl. I thought it was funny at the time. … Years after, I asked myself what did I do to that poor little girl that never saw a sweet? That has stuck with me all my life. A part of me wants to make up to them.

The Tuam home had a long and ugly history of health issues and other problems. A 1944 government inspection described the children at the home as “fragile, pot-bellied and emaciated.”

The home itself no longer stands, but the area around the unmarked mass grave has been maintained by local residents, who keep the grass trimmed and have built a small grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Corless recently discovered the death records from the home, which documented 796 children as dying from malnutrition, premature birth, deformities and infectious diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. As mandated by Catholic tenets, the children were denied baptism and were buried in unconsecrated ground. Their bodies were not buried in coffins, and apparently were merely thrown into the septic tank. Corless recalls being asked by her contact at the local registry office, “Do you really want all of these deaths?” When Corless said she did, as she recalls, “she asked me did I realize the enormity of the numbers of deaths there?” She adds:

If you look at the records, babies were dying two a week, but I’m still trying to figure out how they could [have disposed of the bodies like that]. Couldn’t they have afforded baby coffins?

Lawmaker Ciaran Cannon says the deaths tell a

horrific account of maltreatment, neglect and a complete abdication of responsibility for the care of these very vulnerable young children,

and adds:

Doing nothing is simply not an option for us in government when presented with details of this nature. These children were denied love and respect, they were treated almost as a sub-species and no-one reached out to put a protective arm around them. And I don’t accept the argument that their deaths can somehow be anonymized on the basis that there were deaths of a similar nature across the country, that this was the nature of the times they lived in. Every child was someone’s son or daughter, every child was an individual deserving of our respect and they were denied that.

Dr. Conn Ward says:

From the abnormally high death rate amongst this class of children one must come to the conclusion that they are not looked after with the same care and attention as that given to ordinary children.

Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, says that if a public inquiry into the “mother and baby” homes in Ireland is not established, then a social history project will be necessary. Martin says there may be “unmarked graves” at these sites, and supports excavating them.

A fundraising committee is raising money to build a memorial that will display the names of the children buried in the tank. The Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, says he will meet with leaders of the Bons Secours Sisters to lend his assistance.

Locals believe that there may be many more bodies in the mass grave, which has not yet been excavated. One tells a reporter:

God knows who else is in the grave. It’s been lying there for years, and no one knows the full extent of the total of bodies down there.

Edited/Published by: SB

me_tooned Published writer since 2001, focusing on politics,
 history, Web development, and other topics.
 First book is coming soon.