A new update from the excavation at Ireland’s former mother and baby home in Tuam is challenging years of claims that children’s remains were “dumped” at the site, with investigators reporting that all 109 sets of remains recovered so far show evidence of having been buried in coffins. Source: OSV News.
According to the latest technical update, issued on October 2, the remains of 109 bodies have been found in a dig at the home in Ireland, which is believed to be the final resting place of almost 800 infants.
All of the bodies discovered during the excavation so far, which began in July 2025, show evidence of being buried in coffins, according to updates released by the investigators.
The home in Tuam in the west of Ireland was run by the Bon Secour Sisters on behalf of the Irish government from 1925 until 1961.
St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in County Galway became the centre of a controversy that made headlines across the globe in 2014 after a local historian, Catherine Corless, discovered death certificates for 796 children but no corresponding evidence of burial.
Subsequently, a 2017 investigation found evidence of what investigators described as “significant quantities of human remains” in underground chambers beneath a memorial garden. They formed part of an unused sewage system.
Media reports at the time accused the sisters of “dumping” the remains of the children in a septic tank. Ms Corless contradicted these claims, telling The Irish Times in 2014 that she “never used the word ‘dumped,’” insisting that “they are not my words.”
So far there have been nine updates from the dig. The project is part-funded by the Bon Secour Sisters, who contributed $2.81 million to the dig, having previously apologised for the “disrespectful and unacceptable way” some children and infants were buried.
The most recent update released on October 2 covers a period of 11 weeks until September 30. Some 10 sets of remains were discovered in that time in an area in the south-west of the site.
In an update from April, the team of international experts tasked with the forensic excavation of the site said results indicated that the infants were “buried in coffins which have since decayed.”
The dig has not yet excavated the area of a memorial garden where investigators found the remains in 2017.
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Remains of over 100 bodies found in dig all buried in coffins at Irish mother and baby home (By Ruadhan Jones, OSV News)
