Historian who has traced death records of children who died at home in Tuam, County Galway, believes bodies were interred at unmarked site

The Catholic church in Ireland is facing fresh accusations of child neglect after a researcher found records for hundreds of children she believes are buried in unmarked graves at the site of a former home for unwed mothers.



The researcher, Catherine Corless, has said her discovery of child death records from the home run by Catholic nuns in Tuam, County Galway, along with a lack of burial records for them, suggested that many of the children's remains lie in the site of an old septic tank.

Church leaders in Galway, western Ireland, have said they had no idea so many children who died at the orphanage had been buried there, and have pledged to support local efforts to mark the spot with a plaque listing all 796 children.

County Galway death records showed that the children, mostly babies and toddlers, had died, often of sickness or disease, during the 35 years the home operated from 1926 to 1961, according to Corless's research. The building, which had previously been a workhouse for homeless adults, was torn down decades ago to make way for houses.

A 1944 government inspection recorded evidence of malnutrition among some of the 271 children then living in the Tuam orphanage alongside 61 unwed mothers. The death records cited sicknesses, diseases, deformities and premature births as causes. In the first half of the 20th century Ireland had one of the worst infant mortality rates in Europe, with tuberculosis rife.

Corless said the burial site had been rediscovered by local people in past decades. Residents have kept the grass trimmed and built a small grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary said he would meet leaders of the religious order that ran the home, the Bon Secours Sisters, to organise fundraising for a plaque listing the 796 names and to hold a memorial service there.

Corless and other Tuam activists have organised a committee to erect a monument to the dead and push for a state-funded investigation and excavation of the site.

The Irish government has declined to comment. Ireland has published four major investigations into child abuse and its cover-up in Catholic parishes and a network of children's industrial schools, the last of which closed in the 1990s.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

• The standfirst and introduction of this article were amended on 10 June 2014 to better reflect the fact that the children's remains are believed to have been buried in a disused sewage tank. This fact has yet to be proved.



