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SURVIVORS, RELATIVES AND archaeologists have called for the site of the former mother and baby institution in Tuam to be excavated as a matter of urgency.
The archaeologists involved in a test excavation in 2016 and 2017 have said a full excavation of the site needs to happen as soon as possible so DNA can be used to identify the remains.
In a documentary set to air this week, archaeologist Dr Niamh McCullagh states: “As a forensic archaeologist, I have never walked away from human remains in that context.
“The measures that were put in place to protect the site and protect the remains were temporary measures, they were not designed to last longer than six months.”
Over four years later, a full excavation of the site has still not happened but related legislation is making its way through the Oireachtas.
The documentary, The Missing Children, is due to air on ITV tonight and RTÉ on Tuesday night. It tells the stories of people who spent time at the institution in Tuam – and the search for the truth about what happened to those who disappeared.
Many people have been unable to get records or death certificates for their missing relatives. It is believed that a number of children in the institution may have been erroneously listed as dead but actually illegally adopted.
Adoption was not legal in Ireland until 1953 but thousands of children were adopted prior to this and many of them were sent to the US or UK.
The Commission of Investigation was set up following claims that 796 babies were interred in an unmarked mass grave at a former Bon Secours institution in Tuam – following extensive research by local historian Catherine Corless.
Excavations carried out between November 2016 and February 2017 found a significant quantity of human remains interred in a vault on the site.
Corless also believes that children’s remains were buried in the ground underneath an area that is now a playground. She too has called for the excavation of the site to happen without further delays.
Speaking to The Journal earlier this year, Corless recalled how the discovery of remains at Tuam over four years ago was “heartbreaking”, saying the issue needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
“The babies should have been taken out of there in 2017 when they were found. It was heartbreaking at the time that the whole site was closed in again and returned to exactly the same way as it was, and nobody knew what was happening.
“I’m also pressing to ensure that the other areas on the Tuam site, under the playground and around the Grotto area, are excavated or test-excavated as well. Because there has been a ground survey done and it pointed out many, many graves around the area.”
The Commission’s final report was published in January and concluded that approximately 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions under investigation.
‘The babies have a right to an identity’
In The Missing Children, McCullagh notes: “At the moment, no crime has been established. But because the site has only been subjected to a test excavation and not a full excavation, a full excavation and a full post-mortem examination might reveal something else. We shouldn’t be sitting here four years later, with the remains still in the chambers.”
She said the objective of the test excavation “was not to recover the remains, it was to establish if they were present or not”, adding: “the exact figures are not possible to say at the moment”.
A number of survivors and relatives are also interviewed in the documentary. Patrick Naughton was born in the institution in 1954 and adopted. He has been unable to find records related to his brother and wants to know what happened to him:
Where is he? They’re going to have to excavate and get all those babies out to see if he’s one of the many babies in that pit so that that child, my brother and my mother’s son, can be buried with her when the time comes.
Annette McKay, whose sister Mary Margaret is listed as one of the 796 children who died in Tuam, wants to know where her sister is buried.
“The only thing they can do, the only thing, is to dig the whole site up. The babies have a right to an identity, they need their own identity. Excavate that site, take our DNA and identify them,” McKay says.
Other well-known campaigners such as Anna Corrigan, whose two brothers are reported to have died in the Tuam insustion, and a number of survivors have also called for the site to be excavated.
Corrigan has been unable to get a death certificate for her brother William and she believes he may have actually been adopted.
DNA identification
Speaking in the documentary about the test excavation, McCullagh said the area of land excavated in 2016 and 2017 included a “19th century stone-built structure that we know was a sewage tank used for the treatment of sewage”.
“It was possible to report that there were multiple sets of remains of juveniles at this location, and that these were potentially in significant quantities,” she added.
McCullagh believes that at least some of the remains can be identified using DNA.
“It would be possible to recover these remains with forensic protocol and procedure in place, it would absolutely be possible.”
She adds that the “best case scenario … would be that all of the remains are recovered, that they are individualised as much as possible, and that those individuals are given respectful burial”.
Fellow archaeologists Dr Linda Lynch and Aidan Harte are also interviewed in the programme.
Lynch says of the test excavation: “The identification of the human remains was all done visually from the surface of the chambers. So it involved taking literally hundreds and hundreds of photographs.
“We were able to estimate an age of death profile from those skeletal remains. And the age ranges spanned from approximately 35 foetal weeks, right up to possibly between four to six years of age.”
Discussing the urgent need to act, Harte states: “We underlined the fact that had to be dealt with urgently. It was a challenge, sure, but it could be excavated and it should be excavated. Subsequent reports and delays have meant that it’s now over four years (later) and there’s still no action.”
Legislation that would allow excavations, exhumations and re-interment of remains at the sites of former mother and baby homes is currently making its way through the Oireachtas.
However, many survivors and relatives have criticised the slow pace of the process.
The general scheme of the Burials Bill provides for the creation of an agency which would oversee the excavation, exhumation, identification and reburial of any remains found at sites where “manifestly inappropriate burials have taken place”.
The Bill would also permit excavations and exhumations from these sites and provide a basis for identification using DNA samples from unidentified bodies exhumed and from people who are or may be close relatives of those unidentified persons.
During the week Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman said he is “acutely conscious of the urgent need to pass legislation in order to allow exhumation at the site in Tuam”. O’Gorman added that he “hopes to bring it through the legislative process as quickly as possible to allow exhumation of the site in 2022″.
The Missing Children is due to air on ITV at 10.20pm today and on RTÉ One on Tuesday, 9 November, at 10.15pm.
I sincerely hope potential pope’s visit to Ireland will meet the same reaction…
@Patrick: you are very judgemental. How christian of you ;)
Not very Christian are you Keyese? If you want to see him, hop on a plane and go to Rome. Simple as that! The Pope would not be welcome in Ireland. He and his church are the very definition of evil. Covering up child abuse, meddling in the internal civil affairs of other states, protecting paedophiles and rapists…I don’t recall Jesus saying “Love your neighbour as yourself and while you’re at it force his child into having sex with you in the knowledge that your bosses will cover it up and proclaim your kindness”. Being Christian has some very good merits to it (although I am an atheist myself); however, how anyone could subscribe to the Catholic Church and its (not Christian) teachings is beyond me after all that has come out about it!
It is exactly what the man deserves and if he enters Ireland he should be arrested.
I’ve said it before on the Gay Byrne story, if the pope comes to Ireland I will be busy protesting over his visit,
it’ll be well worth the holiday time off work. I feel it is my duty to do so as a morally right citizen of Ireland.
So if a Muslim cleric who supports jihad visits Ireland you’ll be out protesting him too
@cormac immigration wouldn’t let in the Muslim cleric if he supported jihad (there was an example last week forget his name) but the pope who protects Peados and supports child rape is free to come as he pleases. If he sets foot in this country he should be arrested!!!
You know David, Ireland has its own little paedo-promoter, protector and rapist lover sitting in the Seanad and nobody seems to mind that. I would be far more worried about the close presence of one who has spoken favourably about, indeed has openly played down the damage caused by the most vile of crimes instead of venting a false accusation at one who has the courage to point out the truth.
So they don’t want their taxes spent on policing the popes visit so they protest meaning more police were required to police the protest and thus more taxes spent.
That’s kind of a moot point
Look at that photo. Look at that glorious child of Christ walk past the barbarian heathens shouting at her like wild devils. Sign of the times … End times perhaps.
Wait a sec… aren’t these “barbarian heathens” also meant to be children of Christ??
It does not look like they are shouting at here but they seem to be directing their attention to behind her to the left of the photo which I presume is the pope. Why when the world is in crisis would any country pay out 50 million to have an old ex-nazi pedo protector visit their country. The Vatican have loads of money why not pay their own way??
Wow Pat! I attempted to put a rather crude comment here about said ‘glorious child of Christ’ but you got all kinds of creepy going on right there.
That ‘glorious child of Christ’ is hot! : )
I don’t believe in god so your mumbo jumbo doesn’t scare me : )
But god believe in you.
Patrick How do I become a child of christ and bask in the glory of his love….show me the way ?
What century do u live in, Patrick ? Or, are u taking the pee ??!! “End time perhaps” – get a grip.
Ah the troll speaketh! She’s a cutie alright but don’t you mean a ‘glorious child of human evolution’ but then you probably think she was produced by a supernatural sky fairy or put together using discards from the rib of a man whilst eating an apple and listening to a talking snake! The people are protesting and rightly so, about the fact that their taxes are being used to pay for the leader of the biggest pedophile ring on the planet to use their city to spout his medieval superstitious mumbo jumbo albeit to the brainwashed (or should that be brain dead) unfortunates who know no better, it’s no coincidence that many of the ‘pilgrims’ come from the third world countries (including Ireland sadly). Toodle pip paddy and keep up the good trolling!
If she wanted me to go to Mass twice a day. No bother.
Don’t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don’t tell me how much you love your god; show me in how much you love all his children. Don’t preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I’m not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give. –Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ
I think Patrick is prob just seeing how many will rise to the bait. The girl in the photo is an adult as far as I can see.. A little old for your average paedo priest. However I do respect her right to exercise her religion.
I find this reporting really wierd. There are about 1.5 MILLION young people in Madrid from all over the world for WYD (including several thousand from Ireland) and its completely not reported. All pilgrims paid a fee to the organisers to be there, so most of it is self financing. I took no notice of the fact that no Irish media reported on this huge event, but find it – in terms of sheer bad journalism – incredible that a counter demo is being reported on everywhere without ANY reference to the thousand times larger event that they are protesting about!!!! http://www.madrid11.com/en/what-is-wyd for info. You don’t have to like or be interested in this event, but to spin news like this is just plain wierd for a ‘news’ site.
Face it, It’s just a propaganda rally for so called ‘catholic youth’ all there to hear their fuherer push his bizarre agenda , reminds me of the Hitler youth rallies at Nurembourg, still, it should bring back some good memories for herr Ratsinziger, take him back to his own youth when he used to listen to that other dictator!
I have no problem with most of what thejournal.ie publishes about church/pope. (don’t agree with some of it, but thats grand). I have little time for fellow Catholics complaining about anti-Catholic bias in the meja. (its karma people! ;-) … yes thats a joke, settle). Didn’t even strike me as important that WYD wasn’t reported on anywhere.
My issue here is with spin. Many readers would have read this article thinking that the Pope is on a state visit to Spain. Why the need to spin it? As someone said, good journalism reports ALL sides of the story. All or none seems fair to me. Spin, about an event that most claim to not know or care about, seems wierd. Thats all.
PS. @Ed … when I lived in Bavaria, people often asked me why Irish people couldn’t stop killing one another over religion … and I found stereotyping irritating back then too.
Nothing to do with stereotyping Noirin, i’ll think you’ll find it a matter of public record that wee Benny was in the Hitler youth as for Irish people killing themselves over religion, I too used the get the same question asked of me and I always gave the same the answer, religion is divisive and where it becomes politicised it becomes just another weapon to use against the enemy, the Irish and the British inhabitants of Northern Ireland kill each other because they have no other religion or race to hate but themselves!
Amazing journalism. There is not one mention in this article of the ONE MILLION OR MORE PILGRIMS who are there in Madrid this week to celebrate their faith. The journalist ignores this entirely in favour of the paltry thousand or so objectors. Yet another example of the anti-Catholic bias that has appeared regularily on The Journal. It’s as bad as Indymedia. It may as well be Indymedia.
If you dislike the site so much I’m just curious why read it and more to the point why comment?
I dislike the sun and the daily mail, you don’t see my buying the papers or even attempting to visit either of their websites though. I’d much rather not waste time or money on such crap.
Actually any journalistic media id they are worth their salt, report on ALL aspects of certain events. Not just the arrival of the pope but also those opposing him. Or does all the religious folk who are getting on their high horse, just want one side reported on – that being of the pope himself – and bugger anything else! Which of course if its not with their tight, religious line of thinking, they wouldn’t want reported anyway! I wonder why!
Reporting is not just about reporting about the majorities – but also about other minorities too!
…That is unless one does not want something to be reported about!
Protests are reported on because they are anti-establishment and therefore news-worthy. I may be paraphrasing the great ‘peep show’ here, but the news can’t just be a list of ALL the things that happen
And is the gathering of 1.5 million people not newsworthy in its own right? A thousand people protesting against the Pope is irrelevent without context. The World Youth Day is a significantly newsworthy event that is being ignored by the Irish media. Instead, Catholic-bashing is apparently de rigueur.
Very wearysome.
As for why I visit TheJournal? It’s not pitched as a left-wing anti-Catholic news-site, and, ever the optimist, I return in the hope that it has found journalistic integrity.
Brian, you can be damn sure that the visit of the pope will be covered and mentioned in all media and news at some stage – so quit the bitching.
I think you’re all missing the point of the article here; look at the economic and political context of the event. The story isnt about a load of people who hate the pope, the story is one of Spanish citizens (rightly or wrongly) protesting against what they see as their government wasting money on wealthy foreign dignitaries when their own country is in economic trouble. THATS what makes it newsworthy, it’s topical. It’s just more interesting because it involves the catholic church, which is the subject of controversy in Ireland; if it was an article about Spanish people protesting against the visit of Silvio Berlusconi, most of you wouldnt bother reading it.
Your right Barry O’Mahony – however it should be pointed out that the people are protesting againtst an organisation that is universal and who’s out of date ideology and practises, are exported all over the planet whereas if it was just a small LOCAL issue that effected only a region or single town, then your right, it probably would not be reported in such coverage.
in fairness in a city of 5 million a thousand protestors is nothing.
The leader of the pedophiles and abusers should be jailed.
So should their promoters / protectors and lovers. So get your sorry ass down to Seanad Eireann and start a protest about removing them from office and putting them behind bars. That is something that you can do NOW for the good of the country.
Can you clarify your position Fergal: do you believe David Norris should be arrested?
Dead right Gavin. Most of the people on this site love nothing more than saying lock up the protectors of pedo’s but they stand behind David Norris. Yes a grown man having sex with a 15 year old boy is child abuse. If another politicians friend (that happened to be a priest) done this and he tried to aid him there would be uproar.
What would you charge Norris with?
Whatever Del thinks the Pope should be charged with.
Obstruction of justice? Withholding information?
WYD brings hundreds of millions to the Spanish economy. Funding €50m of security is a worthwhile investment. We had the same arguments here about the Queen and Obama, well, just the Queen because we all love Obama right? It’s now paying itself off with increased tourism.
It’s clear that the protests are not economical but political. Everyone has the right to protest against the Pope’s visit but the actions of some of the protestors bring shame to the movement. Many are shouting abuse at pilgrims and some of the banners incite violence against the Pope. Such actions are an attack on religious freedom.
People should be allowed to attend this event without being harassed. Some pilgrims had eggs pelted at them. The scuffles with police show how uncivilised some of the demonstrators are.
Well put David…
The Vatican should wise up to the current state of the world and pay their own way! They are living in the middle ages
What other head of state pays his own way when traveling.
Seems that Benny finally gets his very own Spanish Inquisition , ya gotta love Karmic Law
I find it amusing that people make the church out to be some brainwashing cult. Those 1.5million people are there because they choose to embrace Catholicism the faith. I can understand if it was purely a financial issue but its not 90% of the comments made here are thinly veiled anti-catholic vitriol. Not denying people have a right to oppose the Pope, I disagree with him myself, I just wish people would relax on the sensationalist irrational nonsense the espoused
Hang on, so you’re saying that all the attendees (or at least thr majority of them) are Catholics by a considered and conscious choice and weren’t indoctrinated (to use a Catholic term) from an early age?
Speaking from personal experience, when your childhood sense of wonder and curiosity is stifled be dogma and a dubious set of "beliefs" is impressed onto your impressionable mind, it can take years to shake that view of the world/universe and re-ignite that investigative nature. They essentially teach not understanding the universe as a virtue.
As such, I’d hardly count people who were indoctrinated by the Catholics as "Catholics by choice" or "embracing Catholicism", and hence why I think it’s a brainwashing cult.
I bet a lot of that 1.5million crowd are just there for fun! Or cos their folks made them go : )
@Brian: Keep your bizarre, unfounded & poorly researched Catholic stereotypes to yourself.
I was brought up Catholic, then I chose to explore other options, I accept a natural explanation of the world and would consider myself atheist. But that was my choice, if people choose to embrace Catholicism as the truth and it makes them happy, who cares? and as long as they dont force their beliefs on others leave them to it. Its essentially irrelevant to other peoples lives. People protest against the queen(an old woman who supports a certain ideology) and they become scumbags, but protest against the Pope and they become heros of free speech. And as I previously stated this is not about just opposing the Pope its utter anti-catholicism
@Paul Anthony
Funny how a personal experience can be “bizarre, unfounded & poorly researched”. Particularly baffled as to the “poorly researched” part.
Nobody wants to turn into one of those “The Freemason Mejia’s out to get us” loons, but the reporting here is a little one-sided.
I originally started reading thejournal.ie precisely because it didn’t pander to the lowest common denominator (which includes the fact that it was neither pro-Catholic nor anti-Catholic etc etc), it was just light-hearted but informative on both sides of every issue.
But the fact that the 1million+ people there to welcome the Pope, which is entirely relevant to the story (as relevant as how much the visit costs) is bizarre, & I’m sorry to say, a tad revealing about an (dare I say) agenda…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2011/aug/18/pope-madrid-world-youth-day
A look at how certain media sources aren’t reporting on the myriad people there to welcome the Pope but inordinately focused on the protesters.
And this is from the Guardian, not exactly a pro-Catholic newspaper.
Your hardly helping your argument by linking to Andrew Brown, pro religious writer and anti atheist!
god bless ye all , praise be the name of jesus .
Keep your blessings and you know where you can stick your jesus!
Pope Pope Pope …. Out Out Out !!!
I suggest razing every catholic church to the ground and building concrete multi story car parks in there place and when our kids say "they’re ugly" we’ll say "they’re not as ugly as what stood before". Your time is over .. Step aside evil men of the cloth. Asides i tell yee ..
If you can Troll I can Troll too!
bless you edward , and cormac ,
hahaha! Priceless!
Was thinking the same myself.
have your say