Overview

• Officials from the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention have begun preparatory works at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, to exhume and analyze remains believed to include those of nearly 800 infants and children.
• The site perimeter has been enclosed with security hoarding and 24-hour monitoring ahead of a full-scale forensic excavation set to begin in July, with the work expected to last up to two years.
• Local historian Catherine Corless’s 2014 research documented 798 child deaths at the home between 1925 and 1961, revealing that only two were formally buried and prompting official investigations.
• The excavation follows a formal state apology in 2021 for abuses in Ireland’s mother and baby homes and the 2022 Institutional Burials Act that empowered the independent ODAIT process.
• Family members and survivors will be able to view the controlled site and any identified remains will be returned to relatives while unidentified remains receive dignified reburial.