Uncovering the truth in Tuam

CATHERINE Corless (above) was born in Tuam, County Galway and has lived there ever since. She married husband, Aidan, in 1978 and was an ordinary Irish mammy living an ordinary life bringing up four children.

She always had an interest in local history after hearing the story of ‘the burning of Tuam’ on July 21, 1920. So, in the late 1990s, she signed up for an NUI Maynooth evening course in local history. The tutor, Gabriel O’Connor, a secondary teacher was incredibly passionate and taught the class to utilise resources such as the National Library, the National Archives and the Hardiman Library at NUI Galway, emphasising the importance of primary research.

Catherine then became involved with the historical society which produces a booklet every year called the Journal of Old Tuam Society. They asked her to write a chapter. She did four. Her chapter on ‘the home’ was the last essay she did for her history class. She had chosen it because she lived out that way and remembered the big 10 foot walls surrounding the home and had vague memories of the place as a child. She remembers when they knocked the ‘home’ down in the 1970s because she cycled in and out of work past the site. In the course of her research she visited the ‘home’ site where someone mentioned a graveyard and grotto. It was a housing estate by then. Catherine got chatting to people, and in varying degrees they told her about two boys finding bones while scouring for apples. She would have no idea what those conversations stirred in her, nor where it would lead.

Discovery

People said there was a big crypt with a lot of bones in it—at least they assumed it was a crypt. However, finding the ordinance maps in the library, they revealed it wasn’t a crypt at all, but an old disused sewage tank. This discovery urged Catherine on to research the maps of the ‘home’ and its grounds. Her first port of call was to ask the Bons Secours Sisters, who ran the home. They claimed they had no idea. She approached Galway County Council who owned the home. Again, no one knew of any burials or graveyard. She went to the births/deaths/ marriages registration office in Galway and asked if there was any possibility of finding the names of children who died in the home between 1925 and 1961. When they looked them up, they found hundreds—796 death certificates in all.

Catherine paid for 200 death cert copies at €4 each in order to write the essay, but didn’t think it would be published because basically she was suggesting 200 babies were buried in a sewage tank outside the ‘home.’ She also expected some backlash too, questions and queries, but nothing. It all fell silent. This unnerved her even more, the idea that nobody wanted to know the truth. But it stayed on her conscience and she wouldn’t and couldn’t let it go. Something was terribly wrong.

She returned to the registration office and asked for the full list of children who died at the ‘home.’ They gave her a spreadsheet which cost over €200. She went back to the Bon Secours Sisters and the council, but nothing! She checked with graveyards in Tuam, Galway and Mayo. Nothing! There were no burial records for 796 babies who died in that ‘home.’ So where were they? Catherine worked under the assumption the authorities would be willing to help. They didn’t.

Exposure

She had initially approached the local media in 2013 concerning the results of her investigations, with the aim of raising funds for a larger memorial on the site, but only a small article was printed. This was followed in February 2014 with a further article in the Connacht Tribune, again focusing on the call for a plaque to be installed at the site with the names of those children who’d died. The story broke nationally in 2014, only after Catherine had read an article by Alison O’Reilly in the Mail on Sunday about an unmarked plot in Dublin’s Mount Jerome Cemetery where children who’d died at the Bethany Home were buried. She reached out to Alison and everything took off from there.

She continued her research and kept talking about it. Following the Irish Mail on Sunday front-page, Catherine found herself receiving multiple requests from the international media, but became increasingly upset by the speculative nature of some of their reports, such as the assumption all of the children who died at the home were buried in the septic tank. But Catherine ploughed on. She allowed film cameras into her home which attracted people who’d been in the home. She’d no idea there were still so many of them alive, but discovered they were afraid to say anything. They’d meet at Catherine’s house every fortnight or so.

Fruits of her labour

Catherine’s research and revelations led to the establishment of the ‘Mother and Baby Homes Commission’ set up in 2015. Judge Yvonne Murphy, Chairperson, visited the site in Tuam and saw all of Catherine’s collated evidence. Their 2019 interim report said the burials were illegal.

Fast forward to now, where excavations began a year ago and the most recent update reports that the remains of 99 infants have been found in coffins. These bodies have been taken to a new mortuary and lab in Toghermore in Tuam by the agency carrying out the excavation, known as the (ODAIT), Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention. Their goal is to reconstruct details of their lives and deaths, hopefully including ages and gender, by using radiology and 3D scanning.

I was prompted to write this feature after seeing Catherine Corless be interviewed alongside Liam Neeson on the Late Late Show recently. Neeson is a co-producer on the movie, The Lost Children of Tuam, which he first heard about after reading an article in the New York Times written by Dan Barry, which sent him into a quiet rage. He told Patrick Kielty it prompted him to use his standing in the film industry to bring the story to life. He wanted more people to know this story and share the atrocity of what had happened in Tuam.

Catherine explained how she got a call from Dan Barry to say she may receive a call from Liam Neeson about getting permission to do a film. Nine years later and The Lost Children of Tuam is now in cinemas—the true story of hidden history, neglect and loss. Moreover, how Catherine Corless faced a wall of silence from the Church, the local council and state authorities, but how this never once deterred her from continuing to find out the truth of what happened to those children. The film stars British actress, Monica Dolan, who plays Catherine. It has been made by Irish filmmaker Frank Berry and co-produced by Liam Neeson. It was released in Ireland on September 25.

Recognition

Catherine has received a number of awards in recognition of her work, including a People of the Year Award in 2018. Following the Irish Government’s 2020 report on deaths and abuses at Mother and Baby Homes, Taoiseach, Michaél Martin said: “Catherine Corless was a tireless crusader of dignity and truth.” She also received an Honorary Degree from Trinity College Dublin in December 2018, and an Honorary Doctorate of Literature by University College Dublin on September 4, 2019: “For the values of humanity Catherine exemplifies and for the difference she has made to the world.”

Catherine Corless was an ordinary mammy living an ordinary life... until she made a far from ordinary discovery.

L J Sexton, mum of four, returned to university to pursue her passion for the written word. She achieved her Honours Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and hasn't stopped writing since. Lyn is born of Irish parents and lived in Donegal for eight years. She is also the press officer for Irish Minstrels CCÉ music group based in St Roch’s Secondary School