A second graveyard has been found at a home in Ireland for unwed mothers formerly run by Catholic nuns, after reports claiming the remains of nearly 800 babies may be buried there.
Earlier this year, we reported that a forensic team has started the process of excavating the site of a former “mother and baby home” in Tuam, Ireland, in a search for the remains of nearly 800 babies and children.
The ghastly operation was to take place where the home – which closed over 60 years ago – once stood after it was revealed that as many as 798 children died there between 1925 and 1961.
According to new information in the New York Post, “consistent evidence” of a second burial site was unearthed in the wake of the latest excavation.
“There were no surface or ground level indications of the possibility of a burial ground at this location prior to excavation,” the group revealed in a statement.
The second burial area is said to lie between 55 and 105 yards from a septic tank where the bodies of 796 infants born to unwed mothers were believed to have been discarded.
The new remains in question, found in coffins, have been sent for forensic analysis, the Office of the Director of Authorized Intervention said. Director Daniel MacSweeney revealed that so far, 160 people have contacted the office to offer DNA samples, in the hope of identifying the bodies.
As per The Guardian, Catherine Corless, a local historian in County Galway, Ireland, was the first to sound the alarm about the harrowing past of the baby home. Corless’ initial research uncovered the names of 798 infants believed to have been buried there.
“There are so many babies, children just discarded here,” Corless told Agence France-Presse.
Corless alleges that many of the youngsters who died at the institution were discarded in a septic tank referred to as “the pit”. Just two of the suspected 798 children were officially buried in a nearby cemetery, with the rest presumably lying in a mass grave without a coffin or gravestone, and with no record of their burial.
At the home, women and girls would be separated from their newborn children, who were then raised by nuns until they were adopted without the mother’s knowledge.
The Post write that some of the children were sent as far away as the US, Canada or Australia. Hundreds of others died.
In 2015, the Irish government set up an investigation into 14 mother and baby homes and four county homes across Ireland, including Tuam.
Speaking to Sky News, Corless, whose tireless work led to the commission of investigation into the homes, said earlier this year: “I’m feeling very relieved.
“It’s been a long, long journey. Not knowing what’s going to happen, if it’s just going to fall apart or if it’s really going to happen.”
The Sisters of Bon Secours, a religious order of Catholic nuns who operated the Tuam home, offered their “profound apologies”. Corless, though, still has trouble fathoming how such depravity could have taken place.
“The church preached to look after the vulnerable, the old and the orphaned, but they never included illegitimate children for some reason or another in their own psyche,” she said.
“I never, ever understand how they could do that to little babies, little toddlers. Beautiful little vulnerable children.”
