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International experts join mass grave excavation at former mother and baby home in Ireland

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International experts have joined Irish specialists at a mass grave where almost 800 babies and young children are thought to be buried.

A team from Colombia, Spain, the UK, Canada and the US has linked up with staff from the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention (ODAIT) before excavation work begins at the site of a former home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, Co Galway, Ireland.

It is hoped the process will lead to the identification of the remains of 796 children who are believed to have died at St Mary's home between 1925 and 1961.

The work follows research by local historian Catherine Corless which uncovered the deaths of the children at the home, which was run by Catholic nuns.

Ms Corless found in 2014 that the youngsters were buried in a sewage system.

Mother and baby homes were institutions where young pregnant women were sent, often under pressure from local clergy. There, they would give birth and eventually be separated from their children, who were offered up for adoption, sometimes in the US.

Irish society in the mid-20th century was deeply intertwined with the teachings of the Catholic Church, and pregnancies out of wedlock were seen as scandalous.

The Irish government made a formal state apology in 2021 after an inquiry found an "appalling level of infant mortality" in Ireland's mother and baby homes, concluding that around 9,000 children had died in the 18 institutions investigated.

The Bon Secours Sisters, which ran the home in Tuam, also offered a "profound apology" after acknowledging the order had "failed to protect the inherent dignity" of women and children there.

The work at the burial site, which is being undertaken by the ODAIT, will involve exhumation, analysis, identification if possible, and re-interment of the remains at the site.

The excavation is expected to begin next week and is anticipated to last two years.

The playground built on a burial ground

You couldn't get a starker juxtaposition; Ireland's first mass grave excavation site used to be a children’s playground.

Generations of Tuam's kids played on swings and slides, oblivious to the skeletal remains of other children just underneath their feet.

The difference between them? A brutal, inhuman attitude to unmarried mothers in mid-century Ireland.

Turfed out of family homes, young vulnerable women were sent to homes like the one in Tuam to give birth in deep shame.

Conditions were awful. Children died at the rate of one a fortnight, year after year.

There are 9,000 dead infants that we know about, at homes around the country.

At Tuam, hundreds of dead children were dumped into a disused sewage system. Dehumanised and left to rot by servants of Christ.

Today a press pack thronged the playground site, now fenced off.

Journalists from the US and Germany joined their Irish colleagues in trying to imagine the horrors that lie under the grass and concrete.

The Irish authorities describe this dig as "unprecedented" and "complex".

Experts have been called in from around the world, including some from Durham University who pioneered a technique using teeth enamel to identify sexes.

Performed to a high forensic standard, in case of criminal proceedings, the excavation could last for two years – piecing together tiny fragments of bones in a heart-rending effort to give some dignity to innocent children regarded as nothing more than an embarrassment to polite society.

ODAIT leader Daniel McSweeney said on Monday: "We have reached an important new stage of this unique and incredibly complex excavation.

"It's three weeks since we took control of the site and significant progress has been made since then.

"We have recruited essential expert staff to the team, preparation work at the site is ongoing to safeguard the integrity of the site and the sensitive nature of the work."

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