Excavation at former mother-and-baby institution to begin this year

The agency in charge of the excavation of the former mother-and-baby institution at Tuam in County Galway has said work is due to start in the second half of June.

In 2016, investigators found what they described as "significant quantities of human remain" in underground chambers.

Tests confirmed the bodies were those of babies and children up to three years in age.

The leader of the current team, Daniel McSweeney, said: "Substantial and meaningful planning has gone into this unique and incredibly complex excavation."

The Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention Tuam (ODAIT) said the work would go ahead pending the appointment of the excavation contractor.

The institution for unmarried mothers and their children was run by the Bon Secours Sisters and closed in 1961.

The home' past came to international attention when a local historian, Catherine Corless, discovered that there were death certificates for 796 children and infants but no burial records.

The Irish government set up a Commission of Investigation into the network of mother-and-baby institutions, which later said the chambered structure containing the children's remains at Tuam was in a disused sewage tank.

The excavation team will aim to identify as many of the remains as possible.

Mr McSweeney said the exact start date would be confirmed in mid May.

He said: "Our work is centred around the people and groups who have been most impacted by the former mother-and-baby institution in Tuam.

"This includes families, survivors and the Tuam community.

"Our work will be conducted in accordance with international standards and best practice, and in keeping with our core values."

He explained the process would take place in two parts, and further details of the forensic approach would be shared at the start of the work.

Mr McSweeney said: "As the site will be forensically sealed at all times during the excavation, we are hoping to facilitate on-site visits for survivors and family members at the beginning of the excavation."

Preparatory surveys began at the site last year.

Mr McSweeney was appointed in 2023, he previously worked around the world for the International Commission of the Red Cross.

In 1925 a former workhouse in Tuam, County Galway, was converted into a mother-and-baby home which would be run by an order of Catholic nuns - the Bon Secours Sisters.

For the next 36 years, it housed unmarried mothers and their children during a period when women were ostracised by Irish society, and often by their own families, if they became pregnant outside marriage.

It was just one of several similar institutions in which about 35,000 single mothers gave birth.

Conditions in Tuam were particularly difficult and research would later show that on average, a child from the home died every two weeks between 1925 and 1961 when the home closed.

Two young boys discovered skeletal remains while playing near the abandoned home in 1971, but it wasn't until the work of Catherine Corless drew attention to the home in 2014 that a mass unmarked grave was discovered on the site.

It is believed nearly 800 children are buried in the grounds.