- 7 months ago
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00:00First this hour, a full forensic excavation has begun at a mass burial site at a former mother and baby home in Western Ireland.
00:08The remains of up to 800 children are believed to have been buried on the grounds of the institution, which was run by the Catholic Church.
00:17The home for unmarried mothers was demolished in the 1970s and replaced by a housing estate.
00:23Clemence Valor has the details.
00:25Abused and discarded, but now hopefully soon at peace.
00:32This seemingly calm site, once host to the former Tuam mother and baby home, is the suspected grave site of hundreds of children's remains.
00:40Eleven years after the first horrifying discoveries, their bodies will finally be exhumed and identified, providing some relief for the victims and their families.
00:49They were sentient beings. They've got no dignity in life and they've got no dignity in death.
00:54So hopefully now when their voices are heard, because I think they've been crying for a long time, it'll be found.
01:01The Tuam mother and baby home mass grave scandal was first uncovered in 2014.
01:05After local historian Catherine Corliss discovered that between 1925 and 1961, almost 800 children, aged from a few weeks to three years old, died in a home for unwed pregnant women and girls, run by the Catholic Sisters of Bon Secours.
01:22Test excavations two years later found significant quantities of baby remains dumped in a septic tank at the location.
01:28The current project is a daunting task, which will be undertaken by both Irish and international specialists, which should take two years to complete.
01:37The first objective is to recover all of the human remains from the site, where they are manifestly and appropriately buried,
01:44and to rebury them with respect and dignity, following a consultative process with families.
01:50And we will work to establish the causes and circumstances of death.
01:53The oppressive and misogynistic institutions represent a dark chapter in Ireland's history,
01:59which saw thousands of girls and women sent to these places against their will.
02:04It wasn't until 2021 that the Irish state issued an apology for its role in the shameful story,
02:10after years of pressure from the victims' families.
02:14For more, we're joined now by Anna Corrigan, who featured in that report.
02:17Her brothers John and William are believed to be two of the nearly 800 children who were buried on the grounds of the home.
02:25She also set up the Toome Babies Family Group.
02:28Anna, thanks so much for being with us on the programme this evening.
02:32You were actually in Toome, I believe, this morning for the start of the excavation,
02:37and you've described today as both welcome and difficult.
02:39Just tell us how important it was for you to be there today,
02:43and how it feels to know that the search for these children is finally underway.
02:50Well, it's been a long fight, Sharon.
02:562012, I found out about my brothers, and it's now 2025.
03:01So that's 13 years I've been waiting for this day.
03:08I see it as the start of the next phase of where we go to identify these children.
03:19My two brothers were born in the mother and baby home in Toome,
03:25but only one of my brothers is on the death list, John Desmond.
03:29My other brother doesn't have a death certificate, has no reason for death,
03:36and is possibly illegally adopted to America, but marked as dead in the homes of the ledger.
03:43So there's a lot of questions, and there's a lot of answers we need.
03:48I represent a group.
03:50We have 14 family members in the pit.
03:53Most people are living in the United States, or they're living in America, UK.
04:02And I represent them, so I speak on their behalf.
04:07And so today is a small light at the end of a long tunnel.
04:12We have a long road to go yet.
04:14Yeah, because the dig itself, it could take at least two years, depending on what is found.
04:20Take us back, Anna, if you will, to that day when you found out, you say it's been 13 years of campaigning.
04:27Take us back to the day when you found out that your mother had been at the home,
04:31that your two brothers were born there.
04:33Well, I had gone to Bernardo's, a charity, to do some tracing on my father,
04:40who had also been in another type of institution in Ireland, the industrial homes.
04:45But then I raised questions about my mother.
04:49And in 2012, I got a phone call from Bernardo's, and the lady said,
04:55I have some information for you.
04:57I'll see you in January.
04:58We're closing for Christmas.
05:00So I said, please don't make me wait.
05:02And she broke protocol, and she said, Anna, your mother gave birth to two baby boys in June.
05:09And she said, I'll see you in January, and I'll give you more information.
05:14And your mother is now deceased, but had she ever spoken to you about her time at the home,
05:19about having had children there?
05:23Nothing.
05:23No.
05:24She married my father.
05:26Sorry, she married my father, and I consider myself an only child.
05:29And you mentioned there's no death certificate for your brother, William.
05:34His name was listed in a ledger at the former home.
05:38What was the response from GardaÃ, from Irish police,
05:41when you actually tried to report the fact that he was missing?
05:44You also did the same thing with your second brother as well.
05:48What kind of response did you get from the authorities in Ireland?
05:51Well, initially, when I went to my local guard station, when I went to report John as a missing person,
05:59they asked when it happened.
06:01I said 1950.
06:02And I thought, really, they weren't going to take me seriously.
06:05But they did.
06:06And the guard said, I have to check.
06:08It's a valid case.
06:09And a week later, she contacted me, and she took my details.
06:14And we'd done a sworn statement, and she verified it.
06:18And it was then sent down to Tewham.
06:21And that was in September 2013.
06:25And in 2014, I went back to the police station after uncovering material about John,
06:32because John was born almost nine pounds in weight.
06:35And by the time he was 13 months old, he was emaciated with a voracious appetite,
06:42no control over bodily functions.
06:44And then he was dead four months later from the measles.
06:48Now, there was a doctor working in the home, and all these nuns were trained nurses.
06:53And to see a child go from this condition of being born healthy
06:58to being emaciated with a voracious appetite,
07:02and they also wrote on his death search, he was a congenital idiot.
07:06Now, I could get no paperwork, despite the fact there was a doctor working there.
07:11And, I mean, I ask anybody, even going back as far as 1946, 1947,
07:18you would have a history of how a child could deteriorate so badly and so quickly.
07:23And so I went to the police, and I said I contend that John did not die of the measles.
07:29He died of neglect and malnutrition, because my mother was sending back five shillings a month.
07:35And the nuns were also being paid for the care and the upkeep of John and the other children in the home.
07:40And, Anna, this dig, it started today, it could take at least two years.
07:46What are you expecting?
07:47Are you hopeful that it will be possible, after all this time,
07:50to identify the remains of the children who are there, who were buried there?
07:54Some of them have been at this site since the 1920s.
07:59I hope and I pray that all these children are found.
08:06As I said, they were sentient beings.
08:08They got no human rights in life, nor did their mothers.
08:11They got no dignity.
08:13They got no respect.
08:15They lived and they died, and nobody cared.
08:20The county council, the Galway County Council,
08:23which was an organ of this state,
08:25owned this property in Tewham.
08:27So, the nuns actually worked for an organ of this state,
08:32different to some of the other homes in Ireland.
08:35So, all work and maintenance and everything was done by the Galway County Council.
08:41But when a baby died, the nuns had to notify the council.
08:46And when they did, nobody asked any questions like,
08:50where are you burying them?
08:51Because the Galway County Council also has oversight on the local graveyards.
08:58And they knew the children were dead because they were informed by the nuns.
09:03And they also didn't check the graveyard to find out where they buried there.
09:08Or they never, I believe, asked the nuns, where are you burying them?
09:11So, with the result, it just shows they were illegitimate children.
09:16Nobody cared.
09:17They were sin of somebody's flesh.
09:19A girl got pregnant.
09:21It could be incest.
09:22It could be rape.
09:23It could be a failed love affair.
09:26It didn't matter.
09:26She was pregnant.
09:27And the child was the sin of our flesh.
09:30That was misogynistic, patriarchal Ireland at the time.
09:34Very, very heavily influenced by the Catholic Church.
09:38And that's the time.
09:39And it took a long time for that to even start to change.
09:44I'm 70 next year myself.
09:47So, I've seen quite a lot of it.
09:49And as well as giving your brothers a Christian burial, Anna, you're also calling for the Catholic Church and for the Irish state to be held accountable for what happened at Shum and at other, many other of these so-called mother and baby homes.
10:03Somebody, Sharon, has to be held accountable.
10:09I mean, if you think about it, the people who are doing the exhumation, I have total faith in them.
10:15And they're experts in their field.
10:17And I would never doubt their integrity.
10:20But a hypothetical scenario, if they only find maybe 150 children, where are the rest of the children?
10:30What is the government going to turn around now they've made this law, which we never, I contend, we never need it, as did my solicitor?
10:39And so they say, OK, we found 150 children and that's it.
10:44Now you can go away.
10:46I'm sorry, the guards have to be involved here because I have two cases with the police.
10:52The coroner should be involved.
10:54There's multiple laws in Ireland that are not being adhered to.
10:58And also the European Convention of Human Rights of the rights of the family in relation to their dead relations.
11:07And there's also questions.
11:08And so there's questions around DNA.
11:11So there's a lot more questions being raised than answers.
11:14But I do hope and pray that I'm proved wrong and that everyone is found.
11:19But if not, where are they?
11:21Because there is evidence and anecdotal evidence and from the charity Bernardos, the head of Bernardos stated that over his period of 30 years there,
11:35he's seen death threats being falsified to broker adoptions to the United States.
11:40He did not mention June.
11:41But this is what's out in the media.
11:45I also have other pieces of documentation that speaks about illegal adoptions.
11:50So are the death threats we have actually real?
11:55I represent people who have 14 family members in this pit.
11:59And we have strong doubts to whether they are there or not.
12:05But we have to let this excavation go ahead.
12:10And I'm just hoping through my solicitor that we can bring the proper uses of the law into place
12:17and to bring the proper people into place that this will be a complete and proper excavation
12:25and completely done under the laws of this state and the constitution and obligations under European and international laws,
12:35which hasn't been looked at yet.
12:37And just finally, Anna, why did it take so long for this dig to get underway?
12:41It only started today, as you say, you've been campaigning for 13 years to get to find answers,
12:47to find justice for your brothers.
12:50For me, Ireland, Sharon, you're from Ireland yourself.
12:56Everything, I believe, is put on the long finger.
13:00And I've always had a mantra, delay, deny till we go away and die.
13:05That's the first thing.
13:07And the second thing, we had a very big scandal in Ireland where children, well, young teenagers died in a big fire
13:16where the doors were locked from the outside with chains.
13:19And it took 43 years to have an investigation into that.
13:24So by standards of Irish justice or by timelines of Irish justice, 10 years, 11 years is quite fast.
13:32We had to put a lot of pressure on.
13:34I had a lot of help from legal people.
13:38Kevin Winters, solicitors in Northern Ireland.
13:43Carol Buckley from the Gornica Chambers in London.
13:46We've also got advice from some professors who were experts in DNA.
13:53So they've steered us and guided us because we're poor.
13:56We don't have anything.
13:57So it's very hard to fight the establishment.
13:59But they have helped and guided us pro bono.
14:02So we still have a long road to go yet.
14:05But it is the start.
14:07I explained to somebody, it's like a book.
14:10We had chapter one the last 10 years.
14:13Now we're into chapter two.
14:14So maybe the book will finish at the end of chapter two.
14:18Or maybe we may move on to chapter three.
14:20And that's the best way I can explain it.
14:22Well, Anna, we do hope that you find all the answers that you are looking for.
14:25Thanks so much for being with us on the programme this evening.
14:29That's Anna Corrigan, who helped set up the Toome Babies Family Group.
14:34Thanks so much for your time.
14:35Thank you, Karen.
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