IRELAND
Journal
IN THE SPACE of two weeks, the story about a mass grave at a former mother and baby home in Galway has grown from something that was just talked about locally in Tuam to a worldwide news story.
The oh-so-gradual unfolding of the story, beginning in the 1970s with the discovery of multiple skeletons, seemed to take people by surprise. After breaking in the media almost a fortnight ago, it took more than a week before any politician made a comment about it, and it was days before national mainstream outlets covered it.
Here, we look at how the story has unfolded, and all of the many, many questions that still remain.
What is the home at the centre of the controversy?
From 1925 until 1961, an order of nuns calls the Bon Secours Sisters ran an institution at this building in Tuam in Co Galway.
The institution was called St Mary’s but was known locally as The Home. Unmarried women in the area who became pregnant were sent there to give birth away from their families, as at the time, having a so-called ‘illegitimate’ child was regarded as shameful.
The babies were then left in the orphanage to be raised by the nuns. Some of them were put up for adoption while some remained in the care of the nuns.
Some of the poorer women who gave birth were forced to work for the nuns in the institution after they had their child as a way to pay for the service which had been provided to them.
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