IRELAND
Irish Times
Sorcha Pollak, Patsy McGarry
Wed, Jun 4, 2014
News that a large number of unidentified remains were discovered in a water tank close to the Tuam mother-and-baby home in Galway has made international headlines around the world.
Following research by the local Tuam historian Catherine Corless into the operation of the mother-and-baby home run by the Sisters of Bon Secours congregations there, it has emerged that up to 796 children may have died at the home during the period of its operation from 1925 to 1961.
The Washington Post, which opens with the headline ‘Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead, found in septic tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers’, told readers how unmarried pregnant women in Ireland were “stigmatised” by societal and religious mores during the 20th century and that “special kinds of neglect and abuse were reserved for the Home babies”.
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