Woman's Hour - The Tuam babies scandal: A Woman's Hour special

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

For this special edition of Woman's Hour, Nuala McGovern travels to Tuam, County Galway in Ireland to visit the site of a former mother and baby home which came to the world’s attention in 2014. It was revealed that up to 796 babies and young children who died in the care of the nuns who ran the home, had been disposed of in a disused sewage tank. Now, more than a decade since the scandal broke, work is starting on a full excavation. Nuala has an exclusive interview with Daniel MacSweeney, who is in charge of the excavation, and hopes to provide answers for families who want to give their children a decent burial. She also speaks to the women who uncovered the scandal - Catherine Corless and Anna Corrigan, as well as journalist Alison O'Reilly who broke the story, and to Paul Forde, a survivor of the Tuam home, whose baby sister's remains may be in the mass grave. If you believe you are related to a child buried in Tuam, please contact Daniel MacSweeney's team. The confidential phone line is 00 353 1 5391777 or email [e-mail] The postal address is: Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT), Custom House, Flood Street, Galway, H91 XV2C, Ireland.And we're inviting you to also share your story with us, you can email Woman's Hour via the 'Contact Us' tab above.Contributors: Catherine Corless, campaigner and Tuam resident Paul Forde, Tuam mother and baby home survivor Daniel MacSweeney, Director of Authorised Intervention at Tuam Anna Corrigan, Tuam Babies Family Group Alison O'Reilly, journalist at the Irish ExaminerPresenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Sarah Crawley AP/Digital: Claire Fox

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Welcome to Woman's Hour. I've come to the outskirts of the town of Toome in County Galway in Ireland to visit the site of a mother and baby home, which came to the world's attention long after it closed. In 2014, it was revealed that up to 796 babies and young children who had died in the care of the nuns who ran the home had been put into a disused sewage tank.

Test excavations at the site found a significant quantity of human remains. The bodies ranged in age from premature babies to children aged three. And early next year, in 2025, a full excavation of the site will begin. The preliminary works for that are starting now. I'll be speaking to the man tasked with running this major operation in order to try and provide answers for those families who are desperate to give these children a decent burial. I'll also be speaking to the woman whose investigation into her own family history

helped uncover the Tune Baby scandal. And I'll speak to the journalist who broke the story. I'll be finding out what has happened in the decades since and what more they would like to see. But first, I'm going to pay a visit to local woman, Catherine Corliss, whose painstaking research brought all of this into the light. Let me just tell you a little more about this story before we go in and meet Catherine. The Chum Mother and Baby Home was run by the Bon Secours Order of Catholic Nuns and it was owned by Galway County Council.

It was open from 1925 until 1961. And during that time, more than 2,000 women who became pregnant outside of marriage were taken there, usually by their families, to then have their babies. After that the young women would leave the home without their children. We now know those children died at a rate five times that of those living in the community. The building, it was demolished in the 1970s, but we know that it had high walls surrounding it and that conditions inside were harsh, even by the standards of that time.

It lacked the most basic sanitary facilities, it was overcrowded, freezing cold, and the mothers were given heavy workloads on a very poor diet. There was little infection control and there was no register of burials kept. And it's that last fact that galvanised tomb resident Catherine Corliss back in 2012. And I'm just outside her house right now. Catherine. Oh, hello. How are you? Welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Delighted to have you. Go straight in there. Sure. Into the left. Oh, I see some photographs of you here. Were you graduating? Yeah, I got a few honorary doctorates from the universities in Galway and Dublin and Limerick.

And I've got different citations and all that, which really gave me a profile and helped with the situation, helped to push it forward. Let us go into your kitchen. We'll get into some of the details of how you uncovered this scandal. But if you could tell us why women were treated in such a harsh way in Ireland for decades, really, in this past century. Well, a woman who got pregnant in a village was absolutely frowned on, whispered about, talked about, all right, we know that.

But the priest would call to the house and tell the family that she can't stay in the village like that being pregnant and no husband so he would arrange for the woman to whisk stuff to one of the mother and baby homes and I even after when they'd given birth and spent their year in the home they couldn't even come back to the village because many a time and I quote some people they were told that she was a temptation she was a bad influence and a kind of a loose woman. That's what went on most of the time. Now, we do know that other countries had mother and baby homes

and the Catholic Church was not the only religious organisation that was involved. But Ireland did keep it going for longer and operated them on a far greater scale than anywhere else in the world. I'm wondering, when it came to the Tum mother and baby home, what was it that prompted you to think, I want to look into this? When I found out about the misery of the people who were in the home, because I got talking to people who were born there, I got their stories. There was only two mothers that I could talk to

because a lot of the mothers had passed on by then because the home closed in 1961. So listening to them and how they were treated and I got inside information about the home then and lucky enough there was a local historical evening course. That course showed me how to research, what to look for, never to give up. Very, very good tutor who was passionate about local history.

So what really opened my ears was talking to the local cemetery caretaker. And he said, there are definitely home babies buried here. Babies from that home? Babies that were from the home. They said they're buried. They're definitely buried here somewhere. Come over here to the site and I'll show you what I'm talking about. I said, there couldn't be.

There's no headstone, there's no plaque, there's absolutely nothing. It's only waste ground. I said, where could they be? Well, he said, we know they're there in that corner. And that is now where we see this in photographs and in documentaries, the little walled off area with the grotto.

It has a grotto now. It has a grotto now, way after the nuns left. It wasn't the nuns that put them there it was the local people and he gave me the story as well he said that you know two little boys were playing here

in this waste ground the nuns left in 1961 and the whole ground was a playground for the local children because the building the houses it doesn't start until 1970

there was a broken slab in the ground and of course they looked at it and they prized open and what they saw it was full of little bones and they contacted

the guards they contacted the Bonsagor sisters Which were the nuns' order. Yes, the nuns' order, yeah. And they contacted Galway County Council who owned the site

and everybody said that they belonged to the famine times. And the famine just to put it in context for people would have been in the 1840s where instead the remains that we're talking about would have been between um 1925 and 1961 yes and they just brought up a priest or something to say a prayer and covered the whole thing in, covered up the slab. So that was the end of that. So I had, at this stage, copied some maps, just old maps. And of course you have the layout of the workhouse.

The workhouse was, it was the same building that the nuns took over in 1925, the same grounds, the same high wall right around it, and one of the old maps that I had. And in the corner where the grotto is now in plain black writing there was septic tank and then I found out that that tank became defunct in 1937 so here you had a very very large tank about half the size of this kitchen here

I said if there's children's bones down there they belong to the Chum home the workhouse people we know buried the dead with dignity they gave them coffins so that started off I exposed my story to the media because nobody locally would listen

to what I was saying. What did they say when you said you think this is not true? They still insisted that they were belonging to the workhouse. It's a famine time. So I wanted to find out then how many children died in the home itself.

And I asked the Bonscore sisters, I asked Galway County Council about the burials and they all denied any knowledge whatsoever so I went to the births death marriages in Galway then when I got no help from the nuns and or the church in fact I should have added them as well and I asked could you find out for me because these are public records how many children died in the home in Chew and from that I got an excel printout with all the names of all the children who died in the home itself and we have it here and it goes from 1926 1925 actually right up to 1960 so we have the names and we have the ages of the

babies you can see it there it's just harrowing. You have nine months, 11 months, nine months, two years, nine months, some infants, they're all different. So this is a well-thumbed through list of names. If I pick out one, let's say Julie Hines, 25th of December 1925, age one year. Maureen kenny 22nd of april 1926 eight years it's quite stark isn't it when you see all the names and i mean we're talking about a nursing congregation i mean i think i just sat down for hours going through that and trying to get it into my head how in the name of goodness could these babies have died and on top of that why weren't the birds with dignity? Why were they more or less disposed of in a sewage area,

a defunct sewage area? With some of the ailments, if that's the correct word, that they died of, if it's Thomas Donnellan, for example, it's measles, nine days, pneumonia, three days, measles, a lot of that.

There's also mirasmus which is hunger isn't it or malnutrition starvation yeah i know that has been disputed that said if a baby wasn't uh wasn't eating or drinking it's going to die of starvation but i mean to say surely to goodness they could have done something for those babies other than just let them die and um you know from reports that i get they were just neglected let's just utter neglect all the way through you can see it there with all the different causes it does make for very grim reading the tally of 796 infants babies young children with a death certificate but but no burial record. I'm just wondering when

you got the full realisation of the scale with what you were dealing with. I was absolutely horrified. It really hit me. But as well as being horrified, I think it gave me the strength to keep going. Because it was quite obvious to me that this was purposely done to cover up. And it was because they were illegitimate. And there was no care. They were just treated as, I wouldn't say treated like animals, because, I mean, you treat your animals better.

We have a little graveyard out there of all the dogs and cats we have over the years, and I know exactly where everyone is buried. I buried them myself with care and dignity and said a few words to them, because that's what they meant to me. But then to put down all these beautiful babies and toddlers just wrap them up put them down in a sewage facility and forget all about them it was too horrific for me to ever I had to be a voice for them and there was no question about it I had to keep going and I had to find justice for them

you did meet another woman Anna Corrigan she's in Dublin we're going to be hearing from her later in the programme but she was looking into this at the same time but just from a different perspective it must have been quite something then when you met her I suppose a meeting of the minds. It was I was delighted here was this woman in Dublin looking her two brothers were borrowing the home in Tuam and And we were in contact for a good while. And we finally met up then. It was Anna Corrigan that got Alison O'Reilly, gave Alison O'Reilly the story. And Alison O'Reilly came down here to the house, we had a good chat.

And she says, this is going out in the paper, in the mail on Sunday. So it did, and it hit the front page. And it was because of Anna, there's no doubt about that and it hit the front page 800 children buried in septic tank and tomb or something like that and my god things took off from there. We are here because the excavation is finally beginning to happen. What does that mean to you? It was a great relief to me. Well, first of all, the greatest relief I felt was back in 2017 when they said these are the home babies. The government made an announcement after doing a test excavation. The carbon dated some of the remains that took

samples off from the chambers of the tank. And they said that, yes, these are the home babies. They're, you know, they're not historical burials they're not from the famine and i thought this is it you know i can i can take a back seat and i remember aiden my husband saying i don't be too sure of that but he knows more like that about the world than i do you know you can realize that it's only now and many years later but you can see the government delayed it and delayed it and put obstacles in the way which I had to go back again and start struggling and start fighting and start writing letters to Rome to the Pope to ministers everyone I could think of to the church to the sisters all had to start right from the scratch again. Do you feel vindicated now that

it seems to be moving in the right direction? It's absolutely I can really and truly say that I am very relieved I am grateful because I could have gone anywhere so I am happy that Daniel McSweeney is on board. We're going to hear from him a little later. Yeah I trust him and he's doing it the right way step by step. And he's ahead of this huge project, which is the excavation. I understand you grew up in Tuam. Do you remember seeing some of the children that lived in the home? I remember them as being pale and skinny and not dressed very well. And I remember most of all that they sat at the back, huddled together,

and we were told not to talk with them, not to mix with them, not to play with them. And we thought they were lucky because the teacher never asked them anything at the time. But they came in later in the morning and left early in the evening for fear that they might mix with the rest of us. And I think the reason was

that they might be telling tales about the home and what went on. I was reading one story maybe you don't want to remember it either Catherine I don't know about a suite. Oh that's that's something that I was very very sorry for but I just played a little trick I mean I was six years old and saw someone else playing a trick on the pretend that they were giving them a sweet paper. But there was only a wrapped up marble or something in the paper. And I remember them eagerly opening it. And I remember the spot where it was. It was in the old cloaked room.

I can see myself standing there watching this and giggling. And the girl said to me, why don't you try it, you know? And of course I did. Took the challenge and thought it was awful funny. But I was taken aback even at the time, because I do remember the excitement in the little girl's face, getting a sweet, then opening it and nothing in it. And I felt so ashamed, even there when I was that size,

because I didn't realise that it never left me. Maybe something in me has to make up to that little girl. When people talk about the Tune Baby Home, it's not too long before your name comes up and you've talked about the various struggles trying to get to where you are now. I wonder if you knew back in 2010 or 2011 when you were starting this work what you know now about the road that was ahead of you would you still have done it? I would start again tomorrow if it fell through. I really would.

I mean, it's simple to me. Wrong is wrong, right is right. There was a terrible injustice. It had to be undone. You are Paul Ford. You're 79 years old and you have travelled to Catherine's house to meet us. Were you always aware that you were born in the Tum mother and baby home?

No, not really until later. Do you have memories of being in there? Not a iota. Nothing? Brainwashed I was. What age were you when you left? I'd be about four and a half maybe I was five you know but I don't remember even coming into the new foster parents. My foster family were a lovely

family I was one of the lucky ones and they did everything that they could for me and let me short to nothing. Clothed me and fed me and I went to school. And so you had a full education then? No, not really. My education was very, very poor. Actually, when I closed the door behind me when I was 13, I was illiterate. I wasn't able to read or write.

At 13? Yeah. But I was a self-educator and I didn't doubt to read and write. Good for you. Yeah. But I was a self-educator and I learned how to read and write. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. But after coming out of the home, it struck me in my mind, I don't know why, but I heard little learning songs in the home.

And they used to ask me to sing a song every night by foster parents before I'd go to bed. And the song I used to sing was Patsy Fagan. Oh, I know that song. Do you? Hello Patsy Fagan. I'll sing it for you now. Okay. Hello Patsy Fagan, you're the apple

of my eye. Hello Patsy Fagan, you can hear the guldo cry. You're a decent boy from Ireland That no one can deny With the harem's garum The dim-like harem's apple of my eye Lovely job

I only know that bit That's all I know That's all I know But I have to say you sing it a lot better than I do I remember that Itinerants used to camp down the way from us and they might come looking for food, begging.

And if they got nothing in the house, if they get them nothing on the particular day, they were calling me a homebird. They knew where I came from. A homebird, is that the term they used? Yes, that was what they called me. I was out from the home in June, the homebird. But I remember when I was going to Masses,

well, other pupils, certain ones, they'd take advantage of you. And they'd start prodding me and stabbing me. And not one senior ever told them to stop you know. Do you think then that the people around you society looked down on children that were from the home? Yeah they did yes. Paul when did you decide to search for your birth mother? I tried at an early age. But a few years down the road, I met this nurse. I asked him to find out all he could about my mother. And he came out of the house one evening and he said,

we found your mother and we know where she is and you can call to see her. But he said, you cannot call for a week. Well, that was as long as 10 years, because I thought something was going to happen before I'd see her. You had to wait a week, but it felt like 10 years. Yes. And where was she?

She was in the Magdalene home in Galway. So what had been a Magdalene laundry that had turned into a home? That's right, that's right, that's correct, yes. And before she died, I was in her company for about nine years. Oh, OK. So when you met her, what age were you? What age was she? 45 for me, she is.

43? Yeah, that's the age I was. So your mum in her 70s, probably, at that stage. But what did she tell you? Did she tell you anything about you being born or what she had to do? No, she did tell me certain things that were very beneficial to me down the road. She told me two questions and I met Tim. Now, at the particular time I met her,

I noticed that she was getting a little bit of dementia. But I was quizzing her up too about my father and that wasn't forthcoming for some reason. But eventually she did tell me five or six years down the road. I brought in all my family to see her and all our brothers and things like that. But there was one particular time I brought in all my family to see her and all our brothers and things like that. But there was one particular time I brought in my two sons. And on our way out, one of my sons, he would be about six,

now he said, I know for I've got my brown eyes. So there was the resemblance. Yeah. And she had stayed, is that right, Paul, in an institution, like in the laundries all her life? That's correct. She told me I said, what were you

working at? She said, I was folding sheets. So in the actual laundry. She was folding sheets all her life. That's what she said, yes. I had a sister as well that I didn't know about. And she was born in 1942 and she died in 1944.

And she's put into that... Into the mass grave? Yes, she's there. And I have the DNA, I have that done. And if the fine bones and my DNA matches her I'm going to take her hopefully and I'm going to bury her along with her mother and if I don't my family knows and my family will do it for me. That's really quite something. But your mum never mentioned Ellen? Oh, never, never, never mentioned anything. Well, you see, she had my sister at 42 and I was born at 45.

And the mother had had two children. That was punishment for them to send her to the Magdalene home in Galway. So she was unmarried, she had the second child, and then this harsh punishment of being sent to the Magdalene laundry. Yes, yes. But I do remember one thing that a nurse told me, or a nun said, that every morning when she went to Mass, she lit two candles. So that will tell you that she knew.

Of the two children of you and little Ellen. Yeah, that's right. And that's only about two months ago I found that I had a sister. How was that when you heard that? No one ever told me. There was a second child and all that was through Catherine Corliss. Catherine Corliss is mighty. She is mighty, isn't she?

Yeah, and she did everything for me. My mother, God rest her, I took her to my hometown to be buried in Kilkerden. And my wife is next door. And that's where my sister is going to be buried, if they find her. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories

I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now. You're listening to Woman's Hour with me, Nuala McGovern. I'm in Tuam in Ireland, hearing about the scandal of hundreds of babies who died buried in a septic tank. It's time to visit the site itself now with the director of the forthcoming excavation. Daniel Maxwini, thanks for meeting with me.

We pulled up kind of into a housing estate really, but we've walked down a laneway. But now I feel like I'm looking at a playground, but there's much more than that here. Yeah, thanks Nuala. I'm delighted to be on your programme and to have an opportunity to explain the job that I have the complexity of this place and maybe to make a connection with people who are interested in Tumen who live in the UK so we're in the old site of the mother and baby home which was originally a workhouse built in I think the 1840s and then in the 1970s the houses in front of us and to

our right and behind were built but there is in the centre of this housing estate this flat area which has a playground and you know a kind of back road into the back of houses and we know that in one part of this which is the memorial garden that we'll get to that there are human remains in this subsurface multi-chamber tank that's part of a disused sewage system we don't know where else there might be human remains but we will discover because we're going to excavate this entire site it's such a difficult thing i think to get your head around as i look you know people have their potted plants outside i'm going by you, garages that they have their little lockups. We've seen a couple of dogs.

I mean, it's a residential area of this town of Toome in Galway. And trying to marry those two things is quite a feat. I mean, your title is Director of Intervention at Toome. What does that mean? The title is not very descriptive yet director of authorized intervention i think the idea is that i am now authorized as director to make an excavation of this site and the the site is a place where there are known to be manifestly inappropriate burials. So the objectives I have are to recover the remains from the site in a forensic way. So it's not like an archaeological dig, it's a forensic recovery. So it's really done to the same standards one would apply at a crime scene investigation.

And having recovered the remains remains we then analyse the remains and I think the ultimate goal is that they are reburied in a respectful way with dignity because obviously there's a lack of dignity in how they've where they are at the moment and then there is a big part of the work which will be about memorialisation, correct

memorialisation of these people and then there is the whole question of identification of remains, individualisation of these people and then there is the whole question of identification of remains, individualisation of remains, because we know that the remains are what's called commingled or mixed together, and to try and establish the circumstances and cause of death. I mean, even with that brief description you've given, Daniel, this is a monumental task.

Yeah, there's a lot to it for sure and it's very important that we do it correctly. Let us take a walk. Let's continue to walk down this path. Playground to our left, houses on my right. So we've come to a gated memorial garden.

There is a little headstone against the grey brick wall that says in loving memory of those buried here rest in peace with two little angels huge letters the full length of a wall I can see in front of me which says 796. Well the 796 refers to 796 individuals for whom Catherine Corliss found death certificates but could not find a corresponding record of burial. So it is believed that there could be up to 796 individuals whose remains are here. If you look at the old maps, then this part here, which is walled in, plus this part here to our left, right down to that wall, is all marked as children's graveyard.

And just to put that in context for our listeners, Daniel, where you're talking about that there are potential bones as well, is underneath where we're standing now, but in front of me, a large expanse of open ground. We will excavate this entire space. If people can think of like a couple of open ground. We will excavate this entire space. If people can think of like a couple of football fields. Yeah, exactly. We will excavate all of that. It's hard to imagine that this could be the place. Yeah, and I think

people really didn't necessarily believe what Catherine Corliss was saying until there was the excavation of this area here inside the Memorial Garden where they found this, as we called it, the multi-chambered subsurface tank. And that's where we know for sure that there are human remains.

Let us go in. There's actually a pair of white plastic rosary beads that are hanging on this gate as I open it. So I suppose here, yeah, you can feel it right daniel it's different in the sense of that people have created a place to remember yeah i think my my understanding is that this particular place was walled off then that residents who live close by actually took care of this garden for decades um up until the discovery of the remains and continue to do so.

As we can see, it's very well, very well cared for. You have mentioned a multi-chambered subsurface tank, but I've heard other people refer to it as a sewage or a septic tank, which conjures up also, it's all horrendous, but particularly those words attached to these children. Are they wrong to use that term? Well, what we know is that there is a 19th century structure which covers a lot of this area, sort of 10 metres, 10 metres, something like that. And that was built in the 19th century as a sort of water treatment, sewage

processing thing. And then within that, at a later date, was built this concrete tank, which is sort of up against the wall and really the length of the wall. And then this tank is divided into 20, basically, chambers that are about two metres deep. So why that was built at a later date than the other construction, we don't really know.

Others have looked at different records of what this tank might be and nobody's really managed to figure it out. There are some theories out there. What I would say to this question and a lot of similar questions that are asked is that when we do the excavation of the site then we will we will know for sure what's here. What do you say to people who are so frustrated that it's taking so long? I know you've outlined some of the steps you have to go through. But even with that in mind, over a decade since the scandal broke,

some people that are severely affected are elderly. Yeah, I'm very aware of that. So I've dealt with similar, not the same obviously, but similar cases when I was working with the International Committee of the Red Cross dealing with post-conflict missing persons. And I know from my work that having families, survivors,

advocates at the centre is very, very important. So I was appointed in May of last year, and since then I've taken an awful lot of time to meet survivors, meet families, meet advocates, to come on news programmes like this, to explain to people what's going on, and to be realistic about dates, and to explain what's coming next and why. until now I think people have been fairly satisfied with the

way we've approached it and we now have a start date for preliminary works on site and all going well the actual excavation will begin February March of next year so I think that that sort of clarity has really helped in bringing people on side and dealing with their frustrations about how long this has taken. How big is your team? It's growing. We have sort of on the administrative side, we have a staff of I think 14 or 15 now. We have the two forensic people who are very important. So we have Oren Finnegan, who was the head of forensics with the International Committee of the Red Cross and previously worked for the UN in the Balkans and in Cyprus

and has a lot of experience with this. And then we have Dr. Niamh McCullough, who is really a preeminent forensic archaeologist in Ireland, and she's the one who did the original test excavation here in 2015-2016. And then we will have forensic anthropologists, osteoarchaeologists, forensic photographers, odontologists really to examine the remains and then we'll be working with Forensic Science Ireland they will be doing the DNA work. And how will you know that you have recovered enough bones for example it's a very brutal

question to ask but I don't know little babies or infants children how will you know and particularly for things being commingled for such a long time? Yeah you know we don't know, little babies or infants, children. How will you know? And particularly for things being commingled for such a long time. Yeah. We don't know what we will find. I mean, we may find 200 sets of remains. We might find 700 sets of remains. We might find 1,000 sets of remains. And until we know what we have, it's difficult to really see into the future.

And you won't know, obviously, how long that will take. Well, we think one to two years for the excavation from the start. And then DNA, I mean, how advanced is it to know? And this brings me actually to some of the older people that were affected by this. For example, we've heard from one survivor and relative, Paul Ford. He has given his DNA in the hopes of finding his baby sister, who is expected to be here. But how do you work that out? There's elderly, there's vulnerable.

The way it's working, the way we are functioning at the moment is we are collecting DNA from eligible family members, which means those who believe that they have a relative buried here and who are, I can go through the list, so it's, if you take the baby, it's the parents, aunt, uncle, grandparents, siblings, niece, nephew, grandniece, grandnephew. So we're taking now from elderly and vulnerable people in that cohort. And then at a slightly later stage, we will take from everybody who qualifies. And I think maybe this is the time to mention that if you are in the UK and you believe that you are related to somebody who might be buried in tomb,

whether you're within that connection or not we would like to hear from you and we will give you the contact details and you can put them on the website but for sure we would like to hear from you so that we can number one you know work with you to figure out whether you are a relative of somebody number two figure out are you an eligible family member who can give DNA if you are elderly and vulnerable we'll take the DNA now. And if you're not, we'll just have you on our list and we'll take you slightly later in the process. When you go into this project, do you already have a definition of what success is? If we've done it correctly and if we have had as many DNA samples as we possibly can,

then science will dictate, if you like, how many identifications we have, because we don't know, for example, how much DNA will be recoverable from remains that have been in the ground for 60, 70, 80 years. Remains that are identified will be returned to families so that they can bury them themselves. Remains that are not identified, I mean, there will be a burial of those remains, but I think memorialisation goes beyond that. And I think that's where we need to talk to families and discover how actually do you want these people to be memorialised and in what way

I mean it must permeate your daily life as well, do you are you kind of living and breathing it for these years or? I think to a certain extent you have to because I've worked abroad and when it's not your country, when you don't speak the language or you can't read the newspapers,

you're sort of insulated from it. When it is home, then you really understand everything that's going on. And that makes it more difficult in some ways or more challenging. But also you're at home, so your family and your friends are around. And we really need to get the excavation started to get to the point where we can collect more DNA, to get our lab functioning. And it's sort of dovetailing all of them so that we can start at the correct time.

My producer and I are now leaving County Galway and we're driving up to Dublin. It takes a couple of hours from here and we're going through green fields, they're surrounded by grey stone walls there's a bright blue sky overhead really beautiful I think there's a real juxtaposition of the beauty of this countryside of the warmth that I've encountered from the people I've met and that dark history I've actually got the list here of the nearly 800 children. I've been taking a look at some of the names. I suppose you're sometimes immediately pulled to names that are within your own family. I see Garvey, my brother's maiden name.

John Garvey, who died on the 14th of February 1942 at six weeks. There is another name that is here. It's John Desmond Dolan. And that's a name that is very important to the next woman I've come to Ireland to meet. Anna Corrigan, you are crucial to this story, seeing the light of day. Tell us about when you discovered that your mother, Bridget Dolan,

had been in the tomb, mother and baby home, not once, but twice. Well, my mother died in 2001 and around about 2011, somewhere in the back of my mind, I had an inkling that I had heard my mother and her brother fighting in the kitchen and I came in and I was very young and my uncle turned I said do you know your mother had two children and my mother said come and play and I don't know whether it was real was it you know it was buried obviously somewhere in my subconscious so anyway I decided to do some research on that and I went toernardo's tracing

and i met a beautiful lady there and she was very helpful so she took the information and she said i look into that so it was coming up to christmas 2012 and i had a phone call to dana she said i have some information for you so I stand there in the corner and she said to me, Anna, she said, yes, your mother had two children in Tuam. Did it kind of confirm what was at the back of your mind, do you think? Or was it a total shock? Or both? Both.

Both, actually both. And then she said, yes, your mother had your brother John in 1946. He was born in the Tuam home. And he died at 16 months. But she said your mother had a second child, in 1946. He was born in the Tuam home, and he died at 16 months. But she said your mother had a second child then in 1950. And the second child was William. Was William. And she said, it's very unusual, William.

And I said, what? She said, William doesn't have a death cert. OK. So she had William in 1950. But you believe there's a possible chance that he didn't die? Yes, because when I get my teeth into something, I'm like a dog with a bone and I'm not letting go. But it was all new to me, so it took me a while to get my breath and...

Get your teeth into it. Get my teeth into it, yeah. So then I started to do more research and I got the inspection report on the home. And I had seen the condition of John. They had done an inspection, and John was 13 months old. They said he was emaciated with a voracious appetite, no control over bodily functions. And I'm kind of going, how can this be?

And then I got some more paperwork, and it happened on the other paperwork that William's date of birth had been altered by a month and a day and my mother's date of birth had been altered by three years and in the community this is anecdotal evidence that this sometimes happens when children are adopted so it's confused and confound when people come back searching they're not on the right track and then I heard anecdotally through a family member that he'd been sent stateside, you know, Canada, whatever. Adopted? Yeah, but that's all I'd heard.

Yeah, and just to give it a bit of context, the homes, many of them, including Tuam, when children were adopted, they were often sent to the States to a Catholic family for money, many say. For money, yeah. So September 2013, I went to my local police station and I made a complaint that William was a missing person. How did they treat you? Very, very, very well. Unbelievably well. I thought they're going to put me in there, they're going to bring men in white coats in and that's it, I'm gone.

But she didn't. She actually brought me into a room and sat me down and I explained about that. She was visibly traumatised, the policewoman. You made a missing persons report. Then what happened? So it was sent to Tuam then to be followed up on. But since then? Nothing. I wanted the Attorney General to excavate. I wanted the police to excavate. Nothing. nothing so you're somewhere in between trying to think could william be buried in tomb or could he

still be alive it's a difficult place to be later in life i would imagine well as i said i followed all avenues i've put my dna up on most of the sites but i firmly believe he's out there and i believe the answers are with chosin I do believe that the paper book is there. With the child agency? The family agency, yeah. In Ireland. I do believe they have the answers. But that you're not getting them?

I'm not getting them. I mean, it's just delay. I always believe delay, deny, till we all go away and die. But we ain't going anywhere. Anna, what was it like, though, to find out this information that you had two brothers? Because you found this information out when you were in your late 50s what effect did it have on your life turned your life inside out I mean I was an only child reared as an only child thought I was an enfant unique

and as a result then my children had no cousins no, no aunts from my side. So then when I found out that I had the two brothers, so there's whole family connections. So I need to know, and my family needs to know, because all this leads to intergenerational trauma. We need closure, and the true child set you free, so. Do you have any idea why your mother Bridget didn't speak about this didn't speak about

your two brothers? Women were actually told keep your head down tell nobody and go off about your business and it's your secret and it's something they had to carry

all their lifetime which I can't imagine the burden that was involved in it and I was asked by when I went to see a spiritual healer I go to one time did you ever notice days when your mother was kind of off and that stopped me in my tracks because I thought after did she stop on William's birthday and you know wonder whatever happened to

him I mean I wouldn't have been cognizant of this. Or John, did you cry on the day he died in remembrance? I mean, was there black periods, me as a child, because children live in their own little bubble? How did she feel? How hurt was she? Yeah, I think it's shame, guilt, fear, embarrassment, and you were told you were a bad person natural fact when you had a baby out of wedlock you committed a mortal sin and murder was a mortal sin so I think you're on par then with a murder so it's not something you want to go and discuss you met

Catherine Corliss who we've met earlier in the programme. These are two very powerful female voices, yourself and Catherine, that were bringing this story into people's consciousness, to put it quite frankly. You also brought another woman into the story, which is Alison O'Reilly.

Strong, strong woman. Let us turn to that woman, Alison O'Reilly. Welcome to the programme. Thank you so much for joining us at Anna's Kitchen Table. So it's 10 years now since you broke that news via the Irish Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online. You work now for the Irish Examiner. How far do you think we've got in terms of accountability since those headlines and story? There's been no accountability as far as I'm concerned. Nobody's ever been charged or convicted of the damage that

was done to these women and children. And for me, the story started with 796 death certs of children believed to be buried in a mass grave in the west of Ireland. We'd never heard the likes of it before and it's 2024 and those children remain there. So for me, you know, there's been loads of reports, loads of articles. We've written a book. We've made documentaries. We've spoken. We've campaigned. We've walked the feet off ourselves trying to highlight this. But for me, the children still remain there. They haven't been found. They haven't been returned to their families.

And so it's still very much a live issue. So this is 1925 to 1961 that we are talking about. Is it possible to hold people accountable for something that happened so far in the past? Well, I mean, it's no different to the Irish courts today, which I cover as well. There's cases of abuse and neglect dating back 50 and 60 years now. As far as I'm concerned,

these were children in the care of the state and religious orders. And if you harm a child, you should be held accountable. What would accountability look like? You're arrested and brought before the courts. And who is arrested? Is it like, I don't know, who's one of the more senior nuns, let's say, in the Bon Secours order at the moment? Is it somebody within the Catholic Church? Is it somebody that's represented the state in political parties? Even if they're dead?

Somebody needs to be held accountable. Somebody who ran the homes, who ran the orders. There's no accountability from anybody. And the people who are apologising to these survivors are from the same parties that created this mess. Anna what would it look like to you accountability? Well there's just one thing I want to say here which is very unique about Tuam. Tuam was a direct provision home and there was only two of them in Ireland. It meant that the building and everything associated with it

belonged to the state and came under the auspices of the county council. They never said to the nuns, where are you putting those children? They never followed up on any of the... And there is legislation and there is fines and there's imprisonment for not following these. And they've done nothing

right there's no answers are the children actually in the grave have they been adopted and sold to america if there were answers it's a huge if would that go some way towards accountability yeah i think so i believe so but like if you look at any massive organization you know like even a media outlet when you breach legislation or you breach the in-camera rule or something your editor is brought before the courts so somebody oversees it and there have been nuns arrested in scotland you know there have been could you see that here? Never. Not a hope. Not a hope. No way.

I want to talk about the Commission of Inquiry for a moment. That reported in 2021, after six years, concluding that there was, and I quote, an appalling level of infant mortality in mother of baby homes and concluded around 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions that it investigated. And continuing to quote directly from the report, Ireland was a cold, harsh environment for many, probably the majority of its residents during the earlier half of the period under remit. So that's the 1920s to the 50s. It was especially cold and harsh for women. Women who gave birth outside marriage were subject to particularly harsh treatment.

Responsibility for that harsh treatment rests mainly with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families. It was supported by, contributed to and condoned by the institutions of the state and the churches. However, it must be acknowledged that the institutions under investigation provided a refuge, a harsh refuge in some cases, when the families provided no refuge at all I can hear the sighs behind me from Alison and from Anna let me start with you Alison your response to that no that's nonsense people were terrified of the church they ran this country with an iron fist and the state allowed them and to turn around and blame society who were terrified and petrified of them really angers me because all they were were vulnerable pregnant women and the child suffered the most

out of all of that but the mothers had all that memory and the fractures and the damage done and to turn around and say well you know your family's put you in there the families were terrified of of the way this country was ran. And they were, you know, they enforced a code of silence by peer pressure, stigma, shame, naming them on the altar on a Sunday. It was an absolute terrifying experience. I have to give Anna a quick chance to respond to that as well.

No, I totally concur with what Alison was saying. Some people wanted to keep their daughters at home. Pregnant daughter that was unmarried. Pregnant daughter, get her out of this parish shame and stigma, right? That's something for sociologists and historians in time to come. What we're looking at here is what happened to the women when they went inside the doors of these institutions. And we had more people incarcerated between Magdalene Homes,

the industrial homes and the mother and baby homes than they had in Russia. Yeah, shocking. I mean, you have to look at the testimony of the survivors. And Anna and I know elderly survivors. Chrissie Tully, 92, from Galway. We've got Rose McKinney, also from Galway. She's nearly 90. Chrissie Tully was dragged to the local courthouse

by two guards and the judge told her if you don't tell me who the father is of your two children because she's one after another I'm going to put you in jail. And she said, well go ahead. And she ended up being ostracised from Loch Ray and sent to Tum twice. She's still looking for one of

her babies. And the same with Rose McKinney. She sent to Tum twice. She's still looking for one of her babies. And the same with Rose McKinney. She escaped from Tum, she got home and the guards came with the nuns to take her back. The idea that society allowed this to happen. They were being chased by Gardaí and nuns. I should say, the Taoiseach, it was then Micheál Martin, made a formal apology to survivors on behalf of the state in January 2021. Let me speak about a redress scheme for mothers and children who went

through these homes. It was set up and opened in March this year. It's expected to cost around 800 million euros, the largest scheme of its kind in Ireland's history. I mean, is that progress and accountability? No, because when you look into the details of it, and obviously redress is to, you know, avoid the courts and try and give some form of compensation for what you've gone through. So the state has acknowledged these people suffered. But on the same hand, they've decided now

that if you were in there less than six months, you won't get a payment. I've heard the six months because people were moved around. I've heard that from certain survivors. But now new information has emerged that if you were in hospital for a certain amount of time, during your time under the care of the state, maybe past 180 days or something, you won't get... You won't have been the six months in the actual home. Exactly. And then if you went into foster care during won't have been the six months. Exactly. In the actual home. Exactly.

And then if you went into foster care during that time, that's deducted as well. So it's just getting smaller and smaller. So it sounds like a massive redress scheme, 800 million, the largest in the history of the state, with loads of conditions and criteria. The nuns were from the Bon Secours religious order and they plan, they say, to contribute money to the current excavation.

The number that was quoted was 2 million euros of the estimated 12 billion euros that it will cost. Also, when the Commission of Inquiry report came out, they issued profound apologies to all the women and children who lived at the tomb home. They said to their families and the people of Ireland and went on to say, we did not live up to who lived at the tomb home. They said to their families and the people of Ireland and went on to say, we did not live up to our Christianity when running the home.

We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way. For all that, we are deeply sorry. What about that, Alison, about the pledged contribution by the Bon Secours? They should be paying for the whole thing. I mean, they can hide behind the fact that they were contribution by the Bonsaguras? They should be paying for the whole thing. I mean, they can hide behind the fact

that they were contracted by the state to respond to this so-called crisis of unmarried mothers. But they were doing the day-to-day care. They know what they did was wrong, otherwise they wouldn't be contributing two million. But they are an extremely wealthy order. They should be paying a lot more. The tomb excavation, the preliminary works are getting underway.

We met Daniel McSweeney, who has done this sort of work around the world. What's the best case scenario, Alison, do you think, as we're at this particular moment? Well, I like to have hope and I would hope that these children would be found. However, the excavation itself has taken 10 years, you know, to even get to the point where we may have a timeline. I've interviewed Daniel McSweeney. He's a very dedicated person, very open person, but it's a mammoth task with very specialist skills. I don't think he has everybody recruited yet. And also, you know, it's a long time that these children are in the grounds. And I'll believe the excavation when I see it, because that is what I had hoped for at the start. When this story exploded, like there was no reaction, trickle of reaction.

And then it explodes internationally. It takes the international media to make the national media. Why do you think that is? I've thought about this. People don't want to know. I don't want to know because of shame or stigma. No, just leave it as it is. Ireland, you know, has got a mentality of, oh, look, that was then.

Why are you still dragging that up? But you have relatives of mine saying, don't tell me you're still going on about that story. Oh, for God's sake. But the attachment theory is there in black and white. It's real. Attachment is real. Destruction happens when you separate a child from their primary carer. So how damage is not created? And people think that that's just years ago

and you move on and look at you, weren't you adopted into a lovely family and didn't you have a great life? There's damage. The women in their 90s who had their children taken and died, they do not go to sleep at night without saying the rosary

and those women know the pain. So how can you say to them, listen, you know that child you lost when you were 18, will you stop going on about it? You can't. You never forget the loss of a child. You never forget it. You just have to learn to live with it.

Will you continue with this story after the excavation, whatever has been found or not found? Absolutely, yeah, because it started with 796 children who are missing and they're still missing. So if they don't find all of them, then where are they? You know, we have to know what happened to these children and it remains open-ended and they're Ireland's missing children and they have to be found.

Alison O'Reilly finishing our special programme on the Tune Baby scandal in Ireland 10 years on. Alison spoke there about the few surviving mothers from the Tune home. I would have really liked

to have spoken to one of those women, but it hasn't been possible. As Alison said, they are now very elderly. You can watch a video of me in Tum with my guests on our social media channels. And if you are here in the UK and believe you are related to one of these children, do go

to the Woman's Hour website. You'll find details of how to contact Daniel Maxwini's team. And while you're there, we'd also invite you to share your story with us by sending an email. We did approach the Bonsacour's Order

and Galway County Council for comment, but neither provided one. TUSLA, the Irish Child and Family Agency, say they recognise the hurt and trauma experienced by survivors

of mother and baby homes and those who were separated from their birth parents and siblings as babies. Any persons, they say, seeking information under the Birth Information and Tracing Act can do so electronically or by post. Now, on the idea that the Irish government delayed and put obstacles in the way of a full excavation at Tuam,

the government say that in 2018, the Attorney General advised new legislation was required for a forensic standard excavation. That law was passed in 2022. An independent office was established and Daniel McSweeney appointed as director in 2023. And on the issue of exclusions in the mother and baby redress scheme, they say the institutions covered by the scheme are those identified as having a main function of providing sheltered and supervised anti- and postnatal

facilities to single mothers and their children. Orphanages, children's hospitals, nurseries and some other institutions are therefore not included, they say, as they do not meet those criteria. Thank you very much for listening to today's programme and do join me again tomorrow for Woman's Hour at 10am. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. And do join me again tomorrow for Woman's Hour at 10am. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. It's election time in the United States, but this is social media's world

and the election is just living in it. Accurate information about elections. Unfortunately, it's not as entertaining as awesome information. Join me, Marianna Spring, as I uncover how life online is shaping American people and American politics. None of us know what's going on, but we do all know that something isn't right. Deep fakes, polarizing algorithms, hate and conspiracy theories.

To me, there's no other logical explanation. That entire thing was staged. Why Do You Hate Me, USA? from BBC Radio 4. Listen now thing was staged. Why Do You Hate Me USA from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC

and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.