Overview

• Investigators secured the former septic tank at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam before commencing full-scale digs this week
• Irish lawmakers passed legislation in 2022 authorizing forensic exhumation and analysis of remains on church-run mother and baby home grounds
• Local historian Catherine Corless’s 2014 research on 798 child deaths and a 2017 test dig first confirmed hidden human remains beneath the site
• Recovered remains will undergo identification efforts for handover to relatives while unidentified infants will receive dignified burials
• The excavation forms part of a broader state effort to address past abuses in mother and baby homes following a 2021 government apology