Children's Mass Grave Found at Former Catholic Orphanage

Suspicions of mass graves at the site got their start in 2014 when a local historian, Catherine Corless, tracked down some 800 death certificates for children residing at the orphanage, but only one corresponding burial record.



In 1975, Ms. Corless found, two boys playing at the site of the former home fell into what had once been a septic tank and stumbled upon children’s skeletons there. She later obtained records from the county dating back to the 1970s, when the town council built an estate over an area marked on maps from the time as a “burial ground”, reported the Guardian in 2014.

Magdalene Sisters

Corless’s research found that infant mortality at the home in Tuam was particularly high. Records for that home show that babies died at the rate of two per week from malnutrition and neglect, and from diseases such as measles and gastroenteritis, Corless told the Post in 2014.