The horror of Tuam: Search for 796 Babyliche has started

The small, somewhat dilapidated playground could also be in any other city. Swinging, soccer goals, nothing special. However, under concrete and lawn, in the Westirian Tuam, there are presumably evidence of unspeakable horror, which once had to endure mothers, especially from their families. Work to search for almost 800 baby and children’s corpses started this week.

In a first step, barriers were set up on the former site of a long-torn mother-child home and further preparations were made. The actual excavations will take months – and Ireland will remind me of the dark past again.

Newborns and toddlers, according to the research, were disposed of in the nuns operated by nuns like garbage. Excellent relationships and babies resulting from it were despised at the time. Women practically lost their right to exist, even if it was rape victims.

Trial grabs promoted shocking

The mass grave had already been discovered during a trial grave in 2017. Human remains were found in « considerable quantities », as it was called – fetuses and toddlers between the ages of up to three years. In the current excavation, as many as possible should be identified and embedded by DNA tests.

Research by historian Catherine Corless had shown in the years before the trial grave that hundreds of children died in the facility from 1925 to 1961, but had not been buried. Because Corless found hundreds of death certificates in the archive – but only proof of burial. Since then, it has been suspected that 796 infants and toddlers were literally disposed of in and around the wastewater system.

« I am very relieved, » the broadcaster Sky News quotes the historian, who comes from Tuam herself. « It was a long journey. » For a long time she didn’t know how to proceed. Approval for a systematic excavation had already been granted in 2018. « Many companies and officials wanted to keep the matter secret and just put up a monument, » said Corless of the « Irish Times ».

Tuam’s suffering is not an isolated case

In a small section of the site, the dead are already reminded. The lawn is lush green, the large digits 7, 9 and 6 could be seen on the masonry. In addition to the small gate gate, a small plaque with two angels was attached. The nuns from St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home belonged to the Catholic Order The Sisters of Bon Secours to.

Tuam is not an isolated case. An independent report published in early 2021 had disclosed huge grievances in the state-controlled mother-child homes in the country. Between 1922 and 1998, around 9,000 babies and children are said to have died in the investigations examined. The unmarried women were exploited, some of which were kept like slaves.

The head of government, Micheál Martin at the time and now in office again, had publicly apologized for the suffering. Irish church representatives had also been repentant – although you have to look very closely, for example to the official “Apology Statement“Finding on the homepage of the Sisters of Bon Secours. The processing is far from complete.