Excavation Begins at Catholic-Run Facility, Where 796 Children’s Remains Expected to be Found [WATCH]

Authorities in Ireland have commenced excavation of a site believed to contain the remains of nearly 800 deceased infants and children at a former Catholic-run institution in Tuam, County Galway, as reported by The New York Post.

The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, which operated from 1925 to 1961, was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic religious order. Investigators are now working to uncover what is believed to be a mass grave beneath a decommissioned septic tank on the site.

Work Begins on Excavation Where Around 800 Babies, Toddlers Were Buried in Ireland https://t.co/2GIM6ezOu0

— IJR (@TheIJR) June 18, 2025

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The home served as a maternity institution for unmarried women, who were sent there to give birth and remain for a year performing unpaid labor. Many of the infants born at the facility were separated from their mothers and placed for adoption, often without the parents’ consent.

Research conducted by local historian Catherine Corless first brought the full scope of the tragedy to light in 2014. Her records showed that 798 children died during the home’s 36 years of operation.

Only two were officially buried in a nearby cemetery. The remaining 796 are believed to have been interred on the property without any formal record or proper burial, many reportedly discarded in what became known locally as “the pit.”

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The site, where the building was demolished in 1971, now sits beneath and around a modern apartment complex. Forensic teams began digging this week to recover and identify the remains, a process expected to take up to two years.

The effort is intended to provide reburials and some measure of resolution for surviving relatives.

Annette McKay, a woman whose sister is believed to be among the dead, shared that her mother, Margaret “Maggie” O’Connor, was sent to the home after being raped at 17.

She gave birth to a daughter, Mary Margaret, who died six months later. McKay recounted how her mother was told of the infant’s death by a nun who said, “The child of your sin is dead,” as she hung laundry.

Bon Secours was one of several such homes operating across Ireland, part of a broader network of institutions that included the infamous Magdalene laundries.

VIDEO: ‘Mass grave’ excavation to start at site of Irish mother and baby home

A quiet, walled patch of grass in the middle of an Irish housing estate in the town of Tuam is set to reveal the latest disturbing chapter in Ireland’s “mother and baby” home scandal. pic.twitter.com/rukpqJuUtn

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 18, 2025

These facilities housed women labeled “fallen,” which included not only sex workers but also rape victims, unwed mothers, orphans, and other marginalized women and girls. Many were placed in laundries after giving birth in mother and baby homes.

While the Irish government issued a formal apology in 2014 and has since established a financial redress program, religious orders have not contributed to the compensation fund. As of 2022, the Irish state had paid the equivalent of $32.7 million to 814 survivors.

The excavation now underway marks a significant step toward addressing one of the darkest chapters in Ireland’s institutional history.

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