RedHanded - Episode 96 - The Tuam 796

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

In 1975, two little boys, Frannie and Barry were playing on the site of an old Mother and Baby home in Tuam, County Galway, when they discovered a pit full of bones. Later that same year, Mary Moriarty fell into a tunnel in the same spot, where she saw piles little bundles laid on top of each other like steps. It would take the tireless research of Catherine Coreless to uncover the grim reality of what they actually saw. Catherine's discovery would shake Ireland and shed light on the Catholic Church's not so secret past.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed.

And before we get going, we need to tell you about the Podcast Awards. Oh, yeah. That happened. It happened. We went. We did go. So, Rundown, this year was definitely a massive step up from last year. Last year, we made it into the top 20 for the listeners choice, which was amazing.

This year, we actually got nominated in the true crime category. So that was like a short list of like five or six true crime podcasts, of which I'm pretty sure we were the only indie podcast in there. Or as they like to call it, amateur. Amateur. Yeah. Can you believe that? Cheers the pod Bible. Define amateur when it's at home, please. I know. Unfortunately, we didn't get placed bronze, silver or gold.

It went to... Who? Robbed. It went to like the BBC and Case Notes. And you know, like, fair enough. They have such high production value. It's good work. So, you know, fair enough.

It's just a shame that we didn't. But forget that. Because that, in my mind, is very much a dictatorship, because that is decided by a judging panel of 10 men and women who have been deemed worthy to judge such things. Do you know what is a true democracy? It is the listener's choice. And we came in the fucking top 10 of the listeners choice. And unlike last year, we were the only true crime podcast in the top 20 and certainly in the top 10. So if that doesn't make us the best true crime podcast in the UK, I don't know what does.

Probably an award for best true crime 2019. That would make it more legit. But this is irrefutable. People's Princesses, again, second year running. That's what I'm taking home. Taking right to the podcast bank. That's only because of you guys. Yeah.

That's only because of you. Like, we wrote the application, everything for the judges won. And we just asked you guys to vote for us. And you fucking did. And you put us into the top 10. What was it? Something like 196,000 votes? 198, I think.

198,000 votes were cast and you put us into the top 10. That is remarkable. Which probably means that more of you than the capacity of Wembley Arena voted for us, which is what we looked up in the bar afterwards crying. I don't think we can say that because anyone could have voted and there were probably thousands of podcasts that got like one vote or something. Yeah, Wembley Arena is only 12,000 we definitely got 12,000 no idea no idea how many votes we got but you guys did it you voted for us so thank you so much for voting you like made us quite emotional when we really thought about what that meant a massive thank you

guys and as promised we will be delivering a bonus episode for you yeah it's not the one that went out on tuesday the other week as some people i know there's a bit of a confusion about that no you will be getting one i don't know what it's going to be yet or when it's going to happen but it will happen very soon the adt one that came out last week was just agreed like ages and ages and ages ago so we did that don't be confused that is not your bonus episode for voting so thank you everybody anything else we need to say? I don't think so. I feel like now the listener's choice is over. We're free like birds on the wing. Unburdened. And with that, we can jump into today's rather horrifying case. Right. So thank you very much. You're all amazing. And we'll harangue you for the same thing next year but for now let's get on with today's story and I've wanted to do an episode about the Magdalene laundries

in Ireland for a while now but that is not what this episode is I got sidetracked but it is sort of Magdalene laundry adjacent and it sits in an equally dark corner of Ireland's past for those of you who don't know the last of the Magdalene laundries closed its doors in 1996. And even though we're not covering them today, we'll give you a quick rundown of what the Magdalene laundries were. And sometimes they're called the Magdalene asylums. They were institutions run by the Roman Catholic Church that housed what were called, quote, fallen women. And a fallen woman could be any kind of person, from a woman who had sex outside of marriage to a flirtatious woman, someone who was deemed as a temptress.

Basically, any woman who was seen to be unfit for general society. These women were taken to the laundries, often by a priest, and left there. They worked in the laundries for free for years. And some women spent their whole lives in them. And they were still open until 1996. That's my lifetime. Unsurprisingly, abuse was rife and conditions in these laundries were pretty dismal.

And the thing to remember that's important is that the inhabitants had not committed a crime in the eyes of the law, but they were certainly in a prison. For many, the church was the law and the women were spoken about using legal language. There are documents referring to first-time and repeat offenders, for example. None of this is illegal. Being a fallen woman isn't illegal. But it was like the church was that important and that powerful that it didn't matter.

This was social and religious power. And they were able to imprison women using it. The Republic of Ireland got independence from the UK in 1922. And obviously the UK is a Protestant nation. So when Ireland got independence, they were like, we're going right back to Catholicism and we're going to do it as hard as we fucking can and out of that sprung this incredibly conservative moralistic state and the control of women through places like the Magdalene laundries and also like the homes that we are going to go on to talk about today was unforgivable like I can't really say that much about Ireland I've never lived there

but I can say what I fucking like about the Catholic Church. Catholicism was back in a big way. And one of the key things that come with that, and a lot of other religions, is oppression of women, which is going to be a key theme of today's episode, unless you hadn't already guessed. If you want to get a feel for the Magdalene laundries, there are billions of documentaries and articles about them. There is also a film called The Magdalene Sisters, which will give you a pretty good idea of what was going on. Now, if you're listening in Ireland, you probably already know what we're going to be talking about today, because it's been all over the news for the past few years. It's not a Magdalene laundry, as Hannah said at the start, but a mother and baby home, specifically St. Mary's mother and baby home in Toome, County Galway.

The home was run by nuns of the Bon Secours Order. Their motto is, quote, good to help those in need. Having a baby out of wedlock in Ireland in the 20th century was incredibly shameful. We're going to be dealing with a lot of shame this week. And the number one person in charge of communities in Ireland at that time were the parish priests. Basically, you just do what they say. They hold all of the power. Here's an example of how a woman or a girl, because that did happen too, might end up in a mother and baby home in Ireland.

A young woman or girl gets pregnant and her family take her to the priest because they don't know what to do. And this is this incredibly shameful thing. Then the priest says, don't worry about it. I can fix it. And he takes the girl off to the mother and baby home where she sees out the rest of her pregnancy. She has the baby, she stays with it for maybe about a year, in some cases two but that was quite rare and then the baby is left in the home and the mother goes back to the outside world and the fate of those children are what we're dealing with today. Some of them were

actually sent to America to be adopted by well-off Catholic Americans. Some were sent to hospitals to be experimented on in medical trials. And some children, actually quite a lot, would die in the mother and baby homes. The Magdalene laundries were used as a threat for those who lived in the homes. It was implied that if the unwed mothers didn't tow the line, they would be sent to the laundries where they would have a much worse time of it. That doesn't mean that the mother and baby homes were a fun old time. They weren't. The conditions, especially for the children, were unforgivable. Sanitation was poor and disease was widespread.

25% of children in mother and baby homes would die in them. That's one child in every four. Now, the mortality rate for children in the rest of the population was just 7% during the same time period. Now, we're not saying that the laundries or the mother and baby homes were the fate of every illegitimate child ever conceived in Ireland, but they were the state-sponsored apparatus for dealing with what was perceived to be a problem. Between the 1920s and

the 1960s, a child died every two weeks in the mother and baby homes in Ireland. In 1934, the Irish Parliament was informed of the inordinate number of deaths among this group of children. A report stated, quote, one must come to the conclusion that they are not looked after with the same care and attention as is given to ordinary children. A report on the conditions in the home from the following year read, doubtless the great proportion of deaths in these cases is due to congenital debility, congenital malformation and other antenatal causes, traceable to the conditions associated with the unfortunate lot of the unmarried mother. So it was no secret,

that is what we will come across a lot this week. The government knew that the mother and baby home is not somewhere you wanted to be. I find it very telling as well that the mortality rate of children in this home is 25%. In the outside world, at the same time in this population is 7%. That is three times almost the mortality rate in there. But yet their reasoning for the high number of deaths is that it's doubtless due to malformations, deformations, issues because of the lot of the unwed mother. Almost saying, well not almost saying, saying because the child is illegitimate, because the mother was a slag, that these children are so sickly and that's why they're dying at a greater rate.

I find that very, very dubious. Oh, absolutely. So the idea of being born bad is central to Catholicism. Like everyone who is Catholic is familiar with the concept of original sin. I think that when it came to these illegitimate children in the homes, the point of being baptized is to sort of cleanse you of your original sin. Like what can a baby possibly have done wrong anyway? But maybe because they're illegitimate, their original sin was too much and their baptisms didn't work and then they died.

Absolutely. He's saying they're born with all sorts of problems, physical problems and all these, quote unquote, abnormalities because of, quote, the lot of the unmarried mother. Like, to be unmarried mother. Like to be unmarried and to have a child was to sentence your child to dying early. And that wasn't any fault of their own. It wasn't due to the abysmal condition. The fact that nobody was looking after these children and sanitation was abhorrent was because the mum wasn't married.

It's very telling, isn't it? And no one's like leading reforms, like no one's protesting this. The Coalition of Mother and baby home survivors estimate that around 35,000 women went through the homes between 1904 and 1996. But let's get specific. The mother and baby home we are dealing with today started its life as a workhouse. Now a workhouse is probably quite a familiar concept for our UK listeners but for everyone else who perhaps wasn't forced to read Oliver Twist at school or who hasn't seen the much more palatable musical Oliver!

I hated reading Oliver Twist at school. It was so boring. I quite liked Oliver. I just can't do Dickens. And I know that probably makes me sound like an uncultured swine, but like I can't. I wasn't a massive fan of Dickens because actually, I wasn't forced to read Oliver Twist at school. I was forced to read Great Expectations.

Oh God, that's way worse. And I just wanted to fucking kill myself. I was like a really voracious reader. I used to read everything. But I just can't get on with Dickens. I just can't do it. Not for me. No.

And I just, i hate reading anyway oh really yeah well i'm so dyslexic that like it's so difficult like it's like a chore for me like i don't enjoy doing it and so that's why i just listen to story tapes instead so like we're having to like very ironic now considering what i do for a living but having to read out loud in the classroom used to fill me with such terror that I would just like, I know, reading all the fucking time. Look at me. I hated it. But Oliver exclamation mark the musical. Fantastic time for everyone. Yeah. Now, workhouses, if you weren't familiar, if you haven't read Oliver, if you don't know what a workhouse is, they were state run institutions where people who were unable to

support themselves could go and be housed, fed and put to work. But they were far from the socialist utopia that they may sound like. They were awful and many people preferred to live on the streets rather than to be thrown into a workhouse. The children who were born in the workhouse though didn't have much choice and less like Oliver Twist, they were sold off as apprentices. In Ireland, the Poor Laws were passed in the 1830s and they ordered the construction of workhouses across the nation. Key point, in the 1800s Ireland was under British rule, so it's unsurprising that the model of how to deal with poor people mirrored the British system.

120 workhouses were constructed in Ireland over just a few years. The one in Toome was built in 1846. All of the workhouses were essentially the same. High outer walls, dormitory bedrooms, and outside toilets, complete with open cesspits. I've also been doing some

just talking about how much I hate reading, I've been doing some incredibly boring reading for this episode about the different things that happened to the cesspits over the years. There's like Tume town meeting minutes where they're like, oh, well, where should we move it? How big should it be? Boring, boring, boring, but I read it,

so I'm pretty up on septic tanks now, guys. Important business, though, important business. Basically, there's one town meeting where they're like, the cesspools in the workhouse stink. We've got to do something about it. Top of the list of priorities, if that was the case. Well, exactly. Oh, so apart from open cesspits,

Tuam also had what was originally referred to as a, quote, idiot's ward. So I think that tells you what we're dealing with. And almost immediately after it opened, the Tuam workhouse was filled with famine victims. The Tuam Herald reported that the moans of the dying were, quote, as familiar to our ears as the striking of the clock. In 1921, the home became a barracks of the new Irish government

after a treaty was signed with Great Britain. Six Republicans who disagreed with the treaty were shot in the yard against one of the high walls. Eighty years after its construction, Toombs' workhouse became Toombs' mother and baby home, and the death didn't stop. The home was taken over by the Bon Secours sisters in 1925 and they were led by a nun with the nunniest name I have ever come across and I've

dealt with a lot of nuns in my time. Her name was Mother Hortense McNamara. Isn't that just fantastic? That is a great name. I love the name Hortense. We can't stress enough how much shame was attached to unwed mothers and bastard children in Ireland during this time. We can prove this with an extract from the Irish Times in 1924. A chap called Dr Webb told the paper that, quote, the illegitimate child being proof of the mother's shame is in most cases sought to be hidden at all costs. The child becomes an encumbrance on the foster mother who has no interest in keeping it alive. Wow. That sums it up. Like that was the attitude. Just this idea that somehow if I wasn't married, but I grew a baby inside of me and then gave birth to it, that I'd be like, well, I haven't got a husband, so I don't really give a shit about

keeping you alive. That's very interesting. But they're talking about the people who foster it. Illegitimate children were seen as much less valuable than legitimate ones. Many children were fostered because they were malleable, free labour. The treatment of the mothers and children in the home wasn't a secret, as we said. It just wasn't discussed.

Naughty children were warned that if they didn't behave, that they would get sent straight to the home. Everyone knows it's part of the culture. In the children who were raised in the home were referred to by the locals as the home babies if you want a deep dive in this into this case there is a really good podcast series on it uh with the same name called the home babies and it has interviews with people who lived in the home and also with key players in our story today. And I am loathe to recommend a BBC podcast, particularly after the awards this weekend. But credit where credit is due, it is a really good show.

So you're welcome, the BBC. Not that we're bitter. We're not bitter. Not bitter. No, no, no, no. That was my very best good sportsmanship voice. We are Miss Congeniality over here. So the home babies went to school with the rest of the children of Tum, but they were kept completely separate. Apparently, they were never really even taught. They were just there. So much like segregation, like this feeling of they're less valuable, they're less important, they're like something is wrong with them. They can be here here but keep them completely separate it's so shocking because it's not even something as obvious as like skin color it's the fact that your mum and your dad weren't married and what i always find the

most difficult with you know stuff like this and also with the magdalene orange juices that like in this time period nuns and priests had so much power and so many of them just completely abused it and it's under this guise of like oh well this is the best for you and like well this is actually your fault and I have to give you this penance otherwise you're not going to go to heaven it's just it makes my makes feel quite unwell yeah this is what happens when anybody has that level of sort of unbridled control and yeah it always happens with religion because people are terrified of it of course they are no. No one wants to go to hell. And if it means I have to shun these home babies to get to heaven, then fucking hell, I'll do it. Tomb local Kevin O'Dwyer remembers being taught that the home babies were the children of the devil. Now the home babies would be marched

back to the home at the end of each school day, all in a line. PJ Haverty was born in the home and he doesn't remember much apart from wetting the bed. But he does remember a day where he and the rest of the home babies were taken out for a walk and they all caught sight of themselves in a car wing mirror. They all started to laugh at the reflections inside it. They had no concept that they were laughing at themselves. Isn't that the most heartbreaking thing you've ever heard? They didn't know what they looked like. They're like ghosts, these children. Yes, exactly. They're literally like ghosts. Like living ghosts. Until they get fostered out, yeah. While the older children went to school, here is what a normal day had in store

for the unwed mothers and their young babies. They got up early for mass at 8am, then ate porridge for breakfast, then the babies would be left in the nursery and the women would complete tedious chores for the rest of the day. And pregnant women were certainly not spared any of the heavy labour, they were there to be punished for their transgressions after all. The women were sinners carrying out their penance. The men who had helped make the babies that were upsetting everyone so much, they, however, went about their lives free. And if anybody needs some sort of like allegorical explanation for why abortion should be legal and safe and free, then this is that.

Most unwed mothers were eventually released back to their lives, back into the wild after they had paid their penance for daring to get themselves knocked up. But some never left. Bina Rabati, Annie Kelly, Mary Wade and Julia Devani remained in the home until it closed in 1961. Julia Devani was born in the home when it was a workhouse and she stayed working for the nuns for the best part of her adult life. She is the best window into life in the home that we have and we'll come back to her in a bit because after the home closed all of the nuns moved on to different places you

know and they also ran the hospital that was in tomb so they were just relocated to somewhere else as were the children who were still in the home I would imagine. After the home closed it stood empty for a few years before it was demolished in 1972, and a housing estate was built on the land where it once stood. Some areas where the septic tanks and cesspits were, for example, were not built over. Children played in the ruin of the home, running from the ghosts of the home babies. The chapel was a particularly favoured spot, and Kevin O'Dwyer, who we heard from earlier, told the New York Times that kids would play confession in the ruins, which is the most Catholic thing I've ever heard in my life.

I think I used to play confession in the graveyard, in the playground. In the graveyard. Spoilers. Because obviously, well, girls can't be priests. So that was the only chance we got, playing confession in there. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been 75 years since my last confession. We used to think that one was hilarious.

Wow. Yeah, Catholic school is so strange. Have you ever given? Have you ever given? Taken. Given? Done confession? Taken confession?

Oh, yeah, loads. You have to. Like, before your first communion, you have to have your first confession, and then you have to do confession 24 hours before your first communion so you're pure enough to take it, even though you're like eight. I genuinely can't remember what I confessed. What does an eight year old have to cleanse themselves of? Lies, coveting your sister's shit.

I think, yeah, I think I said lying. I think I probably said swearing. I think that was probably it. And then I remember I got 10 Hail Mayors and 10 Half Fathers and you had to go and sit in this little room and pray them all together on your rosary. And then my mum picked me up in the car. And my mum is a dirty Protestant, so she doesn't understand how these things work. And she was like, so what happened?

How did it go? And I told her and she was like, what did you do to get 10 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys? You have to tell me. And I was like, no, mum, that's the whole point of confession. I don't have to tell anyone. Only Father Bailey knows and he already knows. Oh, I didn't realise there was like punishment for confession. Oh, yeah.

It depends on what you've done. I thought it was just, hey, I'm coming here to tell you this so that you can just do that thing where you absolve me all of my sins because I'm confessing to them. Yeah, but you have to pray quite a lot afterwards as well. I didn't realise that. I thought it was just like a soz. Well, it basically is a soz because all you do is sit in the room and chant some words to yourself in your head. You don't even do it out loud. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, in my particular parish. My particular experience of it. So, yeah, these kids are just gamifying it. They're like, let's go in the playground. Also, the most Catholic thing that's ever happened to me in my life is that I have my own personal priest called Father Neil. So when I did my first communion, everyone else had the normal parish priest and I flew in my special one that had to do it for me. Wow. Yeah, really pretty Catholic over here. I want to make so many personal priests. I just don't think it's appropriate.

So I'm just not going to say anything. He's a nice man, by the way. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.

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1975 now and there used to be an orchard next to the wall so they're playing in their trees they're picking apples and then they jump out of the trees and into the grass where the cesspool used to be franny hopkins and barry sweeney were running around when they came across a concrete slab they jumped on it and found that it echoed i've read their ages differently reported in different sources. Actually, really funny thing with this case, like the numbers are just all over the place. Like I've seen them just reported in so many different ways that I'm just sometimes I'm not sure what's right, but I've done my best. So Franny and Barry were somewhere between seven and 12 and Franny was the

older one. So being kids and being curious, Franny and Barry decided that they had to know what was inside. But they didn't find any hidden treasure. They pushed the concrete slab to one side and under it there were piles of skulls and bones. Franny, this is really nasty, Franny then pushed little Barry into the hole with all of the remains, which obviously Barry hated. He started to cry, so Franny pulled him back out and then they made friends again and skipped all over town telling everyone what they had seen. The community agreed that the boys must

have stumbled upon the bones of some famine victims. A priest said a prayer at the site and that was the end of that. This house is obviously knocked down and then they build like all of these homes on top of it. They're not quite built yet. They're like under construction when this is happening. Oh, under construction. Eventually they do, right? Yes, yeah, yeah. If you found out about all this now, would you fucking live there?

That plot used to be a workhouse and then a fucking mother and baby home. But I on purpose haven't looked up the history of the house I live in now because it's so old. And people have definitely died in here. Yeah, you don't want to know. Now, in the same year, so 1975, in the run-up to Halloween, another strange thing happened on the estate where the home once was. Mary Moriarty was told by a neighbour that a young kid called Martin was running around with a skull on a stick.

Mary went looking for Martin, and she saw that he was indeed running around with a skull on a stick. Martin, you fucking spooky bitch. Where did you find a skull and just decide to run around with it on a stick? These kids are so creepy. I'm sorry. Like confessions, pushing each other into skull pits. And I think they're also bored. Running around with skulls on sticks.

Don't think there was much else to do, to be honest. No, not making excuses. Yeah, no, Martin is a spooky bitch. He really is. Now, Martin had found the skull in the undergrowth, on the site of the old home, and he was convinced, he said, that the skull was made out of plastic.

But it definitely wasn't. Mary had a look at the skull and realised that it had almost a full set of human teeth. And we say almost because the skull belonged to a human child. Mary told Martin that he had to put the skull back where he had found it, and she and a few others followed him to where that was. In the weeds and rubble of the old home, Mary and her neighbours searched for more bones, but with no luck.

Until, that is, Mary felt the ground start to go from beneath her feet, and terrifyingly, she fell through the ground. She had fallen into what looked like a tunnel. It was dark but Mary could clearly see lots of little bundles stacked on top of each other like steps. Each bundle was about the size of a bottle and they were all wrapped in a similar way in cloth. 18 months later Mary would have her own baby in a hospital run by the Bon Secours nuns and her son was handed to her, swaddled, in a very similar way. Mary was soon pulled out of the tunnel by her neighbours,

but she had no idea what she had seen. Luckily, she knew someone who she thought might know. Julia Deverney, who had worked at the home for many years, we mentioned her a little while ago, she still actually lived in Tum. Mary told Julia what she had seen in the tunnel and julia without missing a beat said quote oh yeah that's where the little babies is many a little one i carried out in the night time everyone is such a spooky bitch in this

arland is a spooky place my friend fucking hell julia that's where the little babies is oh my god yeah she's a tape recording of her interviews. And yeah, she's a spooky bitch. Yeah. That was also a terrible attempt. I wasn't even attempting an Irish accent. That was just a terrible. I can't do one either.

Something. But anyway. Oh, you are, you're a racist. I'm not, I can't even handle you right now. So yeah, the other thing about Julia though, like she was completely institutionalized. She'd lived here her entire life. like she just thought this was all completely normal and i will i know we keep saying that everyone knew what was going on no one did

anything about it people knew it was bad i don't think people specifically knew apart from the people because it's like a prison it's got those high walls like no one's ever really going in there until unless they're being dropped off as a pregnant woman or they're going in to take a baby home with them no one's really seeing just how bad it is. It's like most things, isn't it? When it's state sanctioned, it's like, I feel like this is bad, but then people in power are telling me that this is what has to be done. Yeah. Oh, yeah, exactly. And especially for someone like Julia, who's just, it's been her whole life. Julia lived in the home for 40 years and she died in 1985,

but she left behind a series of audio interviews that described what life was like at St Mary's. In these tapes, Julia described the mother and baby home as an awful, lonely old hole, where women would await the moment they were separated from their babies, like, quote, Our Lady waiting for the crucifixion. She also said that the children were kept like chickens in a coop and i think that's probably the most like effective imagery like they're all just crammed in there like like chickens the most common phrase that i've come

across what i've heard or i've read while looking into this case is people just being like oh yeah it was it was horrible but that's just the way things were it's just this total acceptance and there's one lady who um they interview in the home babies and she says you know i thought it was right the way things were i thought those women were right to be in there and it was their fault and you know they deserve to be punished and the babies weren't the same as legitimate babies and that was just accepted widely absolutely and it's like we've talked about in other cases it's just terrifying what people can be convinced of that these babies are half babies or half human or less important than another baby. But even, you know, given all of that, Mary Moriarty couldn't believe what Julia had just said to her, that the babies were buried in a tunnel in the grounds of the home altogether

in some sort of mass grave. Burial is a really big deal in the Catholic Church and in Ireland full stop. Actually death in general is a pretty big deal. I suppose it's like a normal side effect of when the majority religion is so focused on on death really I suppose. So in Ireland the death notices are still read out on the radio which is bizarre. Being buried on unconsecrated ground is reserved for babies who've not been christened and people who've killed themselves. So basically people who are not going into heaven anyway. And obviously killing yourself in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church is a mortal sin. But all of the children in the home were baptised as a matter of course.

It was run by nuns, obviously, that's their whole bag. So why were the babies being buried in a mass grave on unconsecrated ground if they were all baptised? There were also rumours amongst the older members of the tomb community that the home did once have a small cemetery on its grounds. But if that was so, why wasn't it marked? And why did the Bonsicor sisters deny any knowledge of its existence? Mary decided that she must have stumbled across the remains of stillborn babies who wouldn't have been baptised. She thought that Julia must have meant that she carried out the stillborn babies to be buried in the night and forgotten about the whole thing. Until 2011, that is,

when somebody started to ask a lot of questions about Hume and the old mother and baby home. That someone was Catherine Corliss, andE and the old mother and baby home. That someone was Catherine Corliss and she is the hero of our story today. I love her so much. She does not quit. She's the best. She's the best. And she's this really quiet, very unassuming woman. I think she struggled quite a lot with anxiety, but she was just like, this has got to stop. Like this is unacceptable and I'm going to change it. And she did. Now, Mary Moriarty was getting her hair done in Tume when she overheard two local ladies talking about Catherine. Both women were totally against the idea of Catherine digging into the past of St Mary's.

Their basic vibe was, what's done is done and we should all just put it behind us. Anyone who had anything to do with the home was long since dead, which I think proves everyone knew what was going on there. Just seems like they didn't want it raked up. They don't want it aired. Now, Mary was having none of this. She thought that the children who were born in the home had a right to justice. So Mary got in touch with Catherine Corliss and told her what she had seen all those years ago, the day she fell into the tunnel. But let's back up just a second. Who was this Catherine Corliss character? And what was she doing sniffing around the old mother and baby home?

Catherine had grown up in Galway and worked as a receptionist as an adult after a brief stint at art college. Catherine married a man named Aidan in 1978, and they had four children together. Catherine had had a difficult relationship with her own mother, so she totally immersed herself in her kids' world, trying to give them the best life that she possibly could. Catherine's own mother Kathleen had not been a horrible woman but just an extremely sad one. Catherine always felt that her mother had a story to tell she was just too ashamed to share it. So when Kathleen died in

1992 Catherine decided to do some digging into her family records. And when she found her mother's birth certificate, her mother's lifelong sadness was explained in one foul swoop. The space on a birth certificate that is usually occupied by the name of the person's father was blank, which could only mean one thing. Catherine's mum was illegitimate. We don't know if Kathleen was born in St. Mary's. We don't even know if she was born in a mother and baby home. But Catherine grew up in Tume and she went to school with the home babies. One particular memory of her school years haunts Catherine even now. As part of a playground joke, Catherine had handed one of the home babies a stone wrapped up in a sweet wrapper and her and all the other children laughed as the poor kid put it in their mouth. Catherine has carried the guilt for that

prank for years and after learning that her own mum could have been a home baby when all of her own babies had flown the nest, Catherine started to investigate St Mary's home. I just find this whole story so sad, like what she finds, the fact that she knows that her mum had this horrible secret, this dark thing that clouded her entire life that made her so sad and probably pretty depressed was just because there was a blank space on her birth certificate and being told her entire life that that meant she was worthless the thing for me as well is just like the just giving the the home baby the sweet like i just like yeah oh god as a fallen catholic i'm quite a guilt-driven

person i still carry around stuff i did in primary school that like I just feel so horribly guilty about and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't change it. You can't find those people and make them feel better and they've probably forgotten about it in the first place but like I know what that feels like to remember something like that. I feel like Catherine just like

she has this feeling that she just needs to even if she can't put things right she needs to try. She needs to understand. So she started off writing essays for the Journal of the Old Tomb Society about the history of the local area. Whenever she asked anyone about the home, no one was willing to talk.

But needing to know that her mother had, quote, fared all right, Catherine kept digging. She would follow the paper trails of the women who'd lived in the home and very often the clues would end in a cemetery in England where the mothers had gone to start again. Catherine also reached out to known survivors in the home and very often the clues would end in a cemetery in England where the mothers had gone to start again. Catherine also reached out to known survivors of the home, people who had been born there

and adopted out, and all of them reminded her of her mother. She said they all had kind of low self-esteem. They feel a bit inferior to other people and I imagine it would be pretty easy to feel that way if you've grown up in a system that tells you every day

that you are worth less than other people because of the circumstances of your birth that were completely out of your control. Catherine also researched the children who didn't survive the home. And as we know, the death toll was high. Some points in history, we're talking one in four. Between 2011 and 2013, Catherine Corliss purchased every death certificate on public record for children who died in the home. They cost four euro each and her total bill came to 3,184 euro and that's 2,810

pounds or 2,516 dollars, which may seem like a lot for a sort of hobby research project. Also, Catherine has no academic background in history at all. This is just like driven by complete passion. Catherine knew that if she didn't look into this, nobody else would. No one was interested in airing out Tum's shameful past. We know a lot of children died in St Mary's, but we're just about to find out how many. According to Catherine's very expensive research, over the 36 years that the home was in operation, a total of 798 children died in the home. Catherine was able to find the burial records for just two. You heard that correctly. 796 children died there and there are no records of where they are buried. Catherine cross-referenced the birth certificates with local cemetery records and did not make one single match. And my head went exactly to where yours just went just then,

that second. We all had a moment together. My original thought was, you know, maybe these 796 babies and children are in the tunnels that Barry, Franny and Mary all fell into in 1975. But hold your horses because we've got a little way to go yet. The two children who did have burial records under their names were not illegitimate children. They were in the home because they were orphans. Catherine had, of course, spoken to Barry, Franny and Mary. She knew the stories of the bones on the land where the home once stood.

So Catherine started to try to figure out what the tunnels might have been. And this meant a lot of probably quite boring trawling through old town records. But eventually Catherine figured out that the spot where Franny, Barry and Mary had seen bones used to be a cesspool for the home that was disconnected in the 1930s. There were multiple structures like this underground, most of them were different iterations of the mother and baby home septic system over the years. Catherine really didn't want to believe the children were piled on top of each other in bundles in old septic tanks under the grass that people walked on every day. But after discovering

the total lack of burial records, Catherine wasn't shocked by much anymore. Unsurprisingly, no one affiliated with the home wanted to answer any of Catherine's questions about the burial records. Some suggested that the children must have been claimed by their families and buried on their own plots elsewhere. But Catherine, and to be honest Hannah and I, found that very difficult to believe, considering the stigma surrounding illegitimate children. Their families didn't claim them while they were alive. How likely would it be that they would come for them when they were dead? In December of 2012, Catherine published all of her findings in the Historical Journal of Tum and closed her essay asking the question, quote,

is it possible that a large number of those little children were buried in that little plot at the rear of the former home? And if so, why is it not acknowledged as a proper cemetery? This was a bold and brave move. Questioning the church as serious business and accusing nuns of burying dead babies on unconsecrated ground is very serious business indeed. Catherine was waiting for a hideous backlash, but it never came. In her words, no one cared. And that just made Catherine even more angry.

So she kept furiously researching. She needed to know what happened to the 796. She compiled a spreadsheet of all of the names and their causes of death that were listed on their birth certificate. You can find this list online if you want. The most common causes of death were gastroenteritis, measles, flu, TB and meningitis. 18 of the children starved to death. This spreadsheet started to get some attention. On the 25th of May 2014, the list of names was published in the Irish Mail on Sunday by Alison O'Reilly. Catherine's research was now international news, to the point where the Order of the Bon Secours actually hired a PR person because they thought they might be in some hot

water. Even nuns need PR people, apparently. I don't know why I found that so funny, but I really did. It is funny. Hello, I'm a nun. I would like some public relations, please. I reckon the Catholic Church spends a good amount of its coffers on PR people, to be honest. Oh, you're absolutely right. That's where the collection plates money is going. Straight into the PR machine.

But no, I was surprised that they didn't hire like a lawyer to try shut it down. They hired a PR person to spin it. Honestly, I really don't think they were that worried. No, fair point. They were just like, oh, this will probably go away. PR is probably cheaper than lawyer. Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure.

So their sister told their PR person and in turn their PR person told the world that the sisters were adamant that there was no mass baby grave on the property and any bones just belonged to famine victims. This is something that their PR person wrote to a documentary filmmaker

who wanted to come to the home. If you come here, you will find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried. Because essentially, all that can be said is, Ireland in the first half of the 20th century was a moralistic, inward-looking, anti-feminist country of exaggerated religiosity, which most of us knew already. Such sass. That is such sass.

My God. All right, fine. Take the proactive approach we will write to these documentarians before they even book their tickets to Ireland to tell them, hey, hey, hey, ain't no mass baby graves here in our septic tanks. Yeah. We knew what we were. Several international tv stations have already aborted their plans actually so uh we don't need you radio leads i don't know if it was radio news round with their press pass but the nuns attempt at the nothing to see here approach

uh didn't work katherine's story blew up it was a headline across the world we're talking new york times washington post it was literally everywhere I can really understand why, because 800 dead babies buried by nuns in the dead of night, that is going to sell you some papers. I mean, I'd buy that paper. I literally have been tempted to buy it now, even though it's all online. I think this is quite key, actually, because there is this idea of there was always the cemetery on the land. The elder people in the community knew about it. There's

some records that say like old burial ground. If that is true, why are they denying it? And why are they saying that it's famine victims? I think that's so important. Because it could well be that in a few years time, they'll present these records and be like, oh, well, we always knew it was here. Everyone always knew. But I think it's important to pinpoint that at this stage, like they are absolutely denying it. After these international headlines, pressure on the Irish government to do something became impossible to ignore. So in 2015, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation was formed by the government and a preliminary excavation of the old mother and baby home began in 2016. So this investigative committee is investigating

all mother and baby homes in Ireland, which I believe there were somewhere between, it was like nine or ten of them. So it's not just an investigation into tomb specifically, it's an investigation into the institution itself. During this excavation, they find, under the plot that was once the home and its grounds, 16 septic tanks were found. Four of these tanks were

examined and in every single one of them, disarticulated human bones were discovered. These bones were carbon dated and they were all from the 20th century. All of the remains belonged to children. The age range from the bones that were tested was from 35 fetal weeks to three years old. Most of them were buried in the 50s, so these remains were definitely not famine victims. Catherine Corliss was right. The grounds of the former home were strewn with the bones of the home babies themselves. The tanks had flooded on several occasions over the years, so the remains were spread around, so there was no way to know how many bodies there were in the tanks. But what the Mother and Baby Home Commission's report did say is that quote a significant amount of human remains had been found. A blue children's shoe

was found in one of the tanks as well. So at this stage we have absolutely no idea how many children are down there. A full excavation of the tank system and whatever remains may be down there has not yet happened. No one is saying that the nuns running the home were murdering children. The crime here is the conditions in the home, the unlawful burial, and the fact that everyone knew, but no one cared. It could well be that all of the 796 are buried in the tanks. But some people have other ideas. There have been confirmed cases of the bodies of children who died in mother and baby homes being used for anatomical studies in Ireland's medical schools. Could some of the home

babies have ended up there? And is that why their burial records are missing? The combined anatomical register of the Dublin Medical School found that between January 1920 and October 1977, over 950 children were sent to the medical schools of the major Dublin universities. These children were aged between five years and ten minutes. Do you know what they call, reading has been fucking mind-bending, do you know what they call a stillborn baby that's kept as a sample? Oh, no. A wet sample. That's vile. That's very vile.

27 of the 950 of the children that were sent to medical schools were stillborn. And only 18 of them were legitimate children. In some cases, the home that sent the bodies of the children would receive 10 shillings per corpse. So it was definitely happening. But currently we have no way of proving if this is what happened to the sum of the 796 in tomb. But I do think it's probably pretty likely. I think it is. If someone's buying dead babies and you've got a field full of them, you're going to sell them, aren't you? Grim as it sounds, then a final chapter of my very grim economics book will be, he wants dead babies, you have dead babies. Oh my god.

And that's what's happening. I mean, it's very complicated. You've finished real? It's very complicated. No, I mean, who is in a better position to sell babies than nuns who run a home full of babies that no one wants? It's standard supply and demand, really. I'm not saying this is right, but, you know, these babies are dead. You're going to put them in an unconsecrated tunnel or you're going to sell them for 10 shillings I'm guessing I know what's happened to these babies there is another theory as well there's quite a lot of evidence to suggest

that in some mother and baby homes the church were essentially farming children to sell to wealthy Americans for a fee this is of course highly illegal and again we have no idea if this was going on at Tomb, but some have theorized that perhaps some of the children of the 796 were sold to America and their death certificates were faked, so no one would ask any questions. This is backed up by John Pascal Rogers, who survived the home in Tomb. He has very clear memories of children being sent to America. He recalled that every time he made a friend, they would disappear. He told the press that, quote, if he was a healthy little boy, he was probably just bought for a price

and shipped off to America or Australia. Most went to America. And obviously, legal adoptions were happening by Catholic Americans from Ireland. Of course they were. But I think there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that illegal ones were happening as well. A report from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission concluded that there was little basis for this theory in the case of TUME. And that might be true at the moment, but it might not be forever.

So this report stated that, quote, Children from TUME were adopted to America, as were children from all the nearby institutions under investigation. These adoptions are generally recorded in the tomb records. It's not obvious why subterfuges would be required to arrange such adoptions. Well, I think I can answer that one. Usual adoptions are free. Illegal ones are not. Exactly. So what happens now? Former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, called Catherine Corliss' findings a, quote, chamber of horrors, where Irish people had buried their humanity.

The obvious thing to do would be to fully excavate the site and put all the remains back together and work out just how many children are down there. And then maybe the commission could make a start on identifying the remains, although I'm not sure how much DNA you can take from a 35-week-old foetus. Especially one that's been down there for 40 years and it's flooded multiple times. I don't know. I'm not a DNA expert. But also, are they going to do this because that is incredibly expensive? Well, yeah, it's going

to be millions. They are going to do it, but it's millions. Clandestine grave expert, which is just like the best job title ever. Why is that not my business card? We can get you one that says that if you want. Yes. Tony Maguire. You could steal his and just cross out the Tony, right, Hannah? She's a lady. She's a lady. Oh, yes. It's spelt with an I. You're right. Now, Tony Maguire, clandestine grave expert, has scanned the ground. We're probably cousins. I'm going to write to her. Like, can I come with your, can I come on your clandestine grave excavations, please? She will never reply to you. Now, she scanned the ground where the septic tank used to be. She does one of those things that they do on Time Team,

where you can see like thermal something, whatever. And she's like... What is thermal? Is it like sonar? Because it's just like bouncing back. Or something like that, yeah. Yeah, it's sonar. She's in her clandestine grave experience. She's like, there are bodies here and they're children.

Now, the Tomb Home Survivors Network said that there cannot be closure on the issue until each one of the causes of death from the home are established. Quote, it becomes clearer with each passing day that the full horror of Tomb is not yet exposed. And it's entirely possible that people are still withholding information. The commission has agreed to deal with the causes of death in a report that is scheduled for 2020. And obviously this entire thing is going to be incredibly expensive. I'm sure it already has been. But I think that the Irish government are just in a position where they can't really do anything else. I think if they weren't to even try, there would just be absolute uproar.

So the total excavation of the site should be happening later on this year in 2019, after the appropriate legislation has been passed by the current Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Oh God, his name is so difficult. His name is, he's half Indian and that is an Indian surname, but I still can't say it. Varadkar? I can't say it. Varadika? I can't say it. Varadika? Too hard. Terrible. The investigation into all of the other mother and baby homes in Ireland is also ongoing. Catherine Corliss never expected an excavation when she started looking into the home all those years ago in 2011 but she has stated that she is ready for the truth.

She still helps survivors of the home track down their birth mothers or lost siblings. And we will absolutely update you on what happens with the 2020 commission report. But other than that, there isn't really anything else we can do except wait. Ender Kenny called the findings at TUME a cultural sepulchre and that's exactly what it is. The treatment of children in these homes was no secret. No nuns broke into homes to steal children. They were put there knowingly by society. And it's not the first time the church has turned a blind eye to child abuse.

Lindsay Erna Brine, a social historian at the University College Dublin, takes issues with people who call the two mother and baby home Ireland's hidden history. Quote, they knew that the institutionalisation of these infants would leave them much more vulnerable to infectious diseases. The price of that cultural and moral discrimination was that these babies died at a rate six times the rate of other babies and that is the thing that is so horrifying. I know like I'm not going to go down a big abortion rabbit hole here but the idea that these women couldn't have chosen to end their pregnancies but you are forced to have this baby and then we'll stick it in a home and it's going to die at a rate six times higher than other babies outside this home once you're here we don't give a fuck about you but

no one's going to get rid of you while you're in there you will be delivered you will live on this life and we will put you in a shithole and then we'll chuck you in a tunnel i have a hard time with the people who argue that um that you know the baby has a has its right to life and you can't take it away from it but the church are doing exactly the same thing. There is a memorial to the 796 in Tum. And for a time, sheets with all of their names written on them hung in the town's church. The name Tum is derived from the Latin word tumulus, which means burial mound.

And throughout history, Tum has stayed true to its name. Got a bit like, got a bit like law at the end then, didn't it? Yeah, a little bit, I think. It's true, man. I think it's such an important case, especially considering everything that's going on in the world right now. People from the UK, stop saying that abortion's legal here because in Northern Ireland it isn't.

And we have Theresa May and Arlene Foster to thank for that. Next time somebody tells me that I should be glad that I have a woman who's my prime minister and isn't she a feminist. No, she's not because she directly blocked the opportunity for women in Northern Ireland to be able to have abortions. So no, thank you. Thank you. Next. That is that's how we'll end this case. So on a brighter note, we hit 10,000 fucking followers on Instagram.

It makes me so happy. How long have I been waiting for that K to appear? That was a 10K. I texted Riti this morning with like a screenshot being like, oh, we hit 10,000. We're in that sweet, sweet swipe up territory. And she texted me back and she was like, oh, K, how I have longed for you.

I've been waiting for this K for a long time, guys. And you made it happen so if you would like to be part of the 10 000 brigade and help that grow ever more you can do so you can come follow us at red handed on instagram on twitter the facebook group is like all out of control like there's more than 6 000 people in there now which is just taken on a life of its own it's amazing and to come hang out with us we hang out in there we chat to you guys it's all fun and if you would like to support the show in another way you can do so at patreon.com slash red handed and bloody hell there are a lot of people on this list

of people who have done so do you know why it's because we changed the terms and they're all like yes i want extra episodes. Take my $10. That's why. Exactly. That is people who know a good deal when they see one. So for those of you who haven't yet, go take a look. You don't have to go there to buy. Go do a bit of window shopping at our Patreon page.

Go take a look at the tiers. See if it takes your fancy. And if it does, you could be on this list next time. So shall we just take this in half? Because I think one person doing this will cause some sort of aneurysm. Arnie Burgin, Burgin, Blake Newworth, Remy Brain, Danielle Penn, Mary Jensen, Savannah, Lauren Shear, Nina, Priscilla Duarte Santos. I like that you type that all in all caps, Priscilla.iscilla that is good I shout my own name whenever I say it I think I have capslexia I can't write or type when it's all in caps you do have capslexia I can't do it I can't do it I think it's because I have joined up writing so when I start to write

in all caps with like handwriting I just lose the ability to spell so I can't do it Rhiannon Gormley, Abby Jameson, Kira Webster, Sarah Bryan, Helen Watson, Madison Sheehan, Megan Pettenato, yeah, Vicks Summers, Mel,orioco, Nick Mamelotti, Elizabeth White, Amy Regist, Leona Leora, Mirkin, Kelly Cohen, Patrice Crockett-Hicks,

Maria Neves-Stevens, Alex Carson, Tara Carson, Jodie L. West, and her wife. That's literally what it says. Yeah, no, read the next line. Rose fucking West. Rose fucking West is Jodie West West and her wife that's literally what it's yeah no read the next line Rose fucking West Rose fucking West is Jodie West's wife oh they sent us a message requesting a specific readout oh that's adorable hi Jodie hi Rose Rose yeah you're the best Rose West you make me laugh in

the Facebook group so much keep doing what you're doing Doing what you're doing and giving no fucks that your name is the same as a fucking horrible serial killer. I love it. Jenna Morrison, Victoria Shevlin, and I'm going to hand it over to you. Denise Grogan, Reagan Reed, Renee Dresner, Gemma Morris, what what? Michelle Germany, Alice Rose, Karen Washington,

Tariq Ruzid Talaab, Kati Linera, Siobhan Tanya, Keisha N,gan carfala elizabeth mouffy nicole ferrara leah charlotte samantha woodbrook gary riches

angela lane price lee barron christina gucci i think is it probably not guys i have no idea guys you could be christina gucci in my

heart christina alex maggie james donny brook uh peruti i god god Geis? I have no idea. Geis. You could be Christina Gucci in my heart, Christina. Alex, Maggie James, Donny Brook, Perruti, I, God, God, help me. Latin, Latin. Yeah, that one. Vicky Sharp, Graham Sillers, Elise Pantino, Mags Creative, Catherine Taylor, Nancy Castro,

Maddie Eisenhardt, Victoria Evelyn, Nicolette, I was going to call you Nicorette then, sorry. Nicolette, Harrison, Charlotte Chester, Kitty Mitchell Turner and Mildy. We're done. Well done all. So there's so many of you. I feel like I've got a giant family. Oh, it is. It's so nice. Thank you, guys. Yeah, that's it. So we will see you next time. See you next time. And we'll figure out what we're going to do with this bonus episode. But not right now. Yeah, it'll be coming soon.

We're not going to be like, it's not going to be months away. It's going to be like in the next weeks. So specific. So specific. So committal. Oh, no. Anyway. Bye.

Bye. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go.

A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't.

I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying

and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.