Overview

• An 18-member international team led by forensic specialist Daniel MacSweeney began excavations at the former St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam on July 14, 2025.
• The two-year project covers more than 5,000 square meters using specialized toothless excavators to carefully unearth fragile remains.
• Recovered remains of 796 infants will undergo DNA analysis for positive identification and subsequent return to families under the 2022 Institutional Burials Act.
• The excavations follow historian Catherine Corless’s 2014 discovery of unrecorded death certificates and a 2021 government finding that nearly 9,000 children died in Irish mother and baby homes.
• Officials view the effort as a critical step in reconciling Ireland’s legacy of institutional abuse and offering dignified burials to victims’ families.