Bons Secours Sisters release Tuam archives for first time as site excavation begins

Irish Examiner

16 hours ago

The Bons Secours Sisters have opened their archives for the first time to allow forensic experts to review files from the former Tuam mother and baby home, where 796 children died over 40 years.
It comes as a specialised forensic team assembled from Ireland as well as Canada, Colombia, Spain, the UK, and the US begin the long-awaited exhumation of the Tuam babies' burial ground, which will take at least two years.
In 2014, it emerged nearly 800 children had died in the former institution that housed unmarried mothers. Many of these children were forcibly adopted after birth.
Research led by local historian Catherine Corless indicated that 796 babies and young children died at the Co Galway institution from 1925 to 1961.
The St Mary's home for unmarried mothers and their children was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns.
Director of the Tuam Intervention, Daniel MacSweeney, and senior forensic consultant and forensic archaeologist, Dr Niamh McCullough, spoke on Monday as media from around the world came to Tuam.
Mr MacSweeney said the nuns have given the team access to the religious order's documents.
'We needed to and wanted to get access to their archives. There will be a lot of information from various archives that will help us to understand what happened," he said.
It is about having multiple sources of information. We will obviously have information that comes from the site, from the excavation, whether that is human remains or artefacts.
'It's really by cross-checking all of this information that allows us to attempt to answer these questions. Even if it is partial identification, that will help us establish a cause of death.'
Mr MacSweeney said he has had around 40 to 50 contacts about DNA over the past two years, and more than 30 people have contacted his office in the past month.
Families of the Tuam Babies and survivors from the home will have a private visit to the site on Tuesday.
Mr MacSweeney said this will be 'the most important event of the week'.
He described the forthcoming landmark construction works as 'the most challenging exhumation we have ever worked on, and we want to get it right.'
The budget for the works this year is €9.4m, of which €2m was spent on the project in 2024.
In 2016 and 2017, it was confirmed by forensics following test excavations in Tuam that a significant quantity of human remains was found at the site that dated to when the home was in operation.
The children were aged between 35 foetal weeks, and two to three years old.
Mr MacSweeney said he does not know until the area is excavated whether all of the children will be found during the process, which will take at least two years.
'We just want to get it right and we will have to see what we find," he said.
Anna Corrigan, whose two brothers died in the home, was also in attendance. She criticised Taoiseach Micheál Martin, children's minister Norma Foley, and President Michael D Higgins for not being in attendance.
It's a momentous day, for our loved ones and not a single member of government is here. hat is appalling that they are not here.
Ms Corless, the historian who uncovered the names of the children, said she was 'overjoyed' that the exhumation was taking place and that she could 'never have given up on the little children.'
"It is huge for me to know those babies are finally going to get the dignity they deserve - it is a wrong put right," she said.
In 2021, Taoiseach Micheál Martin delivered an apology on behalf of the state for the treatment of women and children who were housed in mother and baby homes across Ireland.
The Bon Secours Sisters also offered a "profound apology" after acknowledging the order had "failed to protect the inherent dignity" of women and children in the Tuam home.
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