After a decade of research and public ridicule, historian Catherine Corless has been vindicated as excavation begins at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, where nearly 800 children’s remains were buried in a mass grave.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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    10 hours ago

    The home, run by an order of Catholic nuns until its closure in 1961, was one of many institutions in Ireland where unmarried pregnant women were placed—often forcibly—and their children hidden, mistreated, or adopted without consent.

    “All those lovely little children and babies, that’s the one thing that drove me,” Corless told The Irish Times. “That’s all that was in my mind—these babies in a sewage system, they have to come out.”

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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      8 hours ago

      Yes, although the mass disposal of bodies in a septic system under the building was discovered in 2017 so it’s been known for awhile. The new part is that they’re finally being dug up, identified by DNA and/or matched with the death records if possible, and will be properly buried.