Pre-excavation works at the site of the former Mother and Baby institution in Tuam, Co Galway, began today, Monday, June 16.
The Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT), is overseeing the works.
Trucks delivered equipment, and barriers were erected at the site of the former Tuam Mother and Baby Home on Monday for the start of the pre-excavation works.
June 16, 2025: Pre-excavation works begin at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)
From Monday, the entire site, including the Memorial Garden, is under forensic control and will be closed to the public for the duration of the works.
June 16, 2025: Pre-excavation works begin at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)June 16, 2025: Pre-excavation works begin at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)
Families and survivors will have an opportunity to view the site works as part of a Family and Survivors Day that the ODAIT is holding on July 8. Any family members or survivors interested in joining the site visit are welcome to contact ODAIT at [email protected].
The forensic excavation is expected to begin in mid-July.
The ODAIT confirmed last week that the pre-excavation works were due to begin on Monday.
“The initial four weeks will involve setting up the site, including the installation of 2.4-metre hoarding around the perimeter,” Daniel MacSweeney, the lead of the ODAIT, said.
“These measures are necessary to ensure the site’s forensic integrity and to enable us to carry out the works to the highest international standards that govern the excavation and recovery programme.”
June 16, 2025: Pre-excavation works begin at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)June 16, 2025: Pre-excavation works begin at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)
MacSweeney continued: “This is a unique and incredibly complex excavation. The work is expected to take approximately 24 months to complete. The final timetable will depend on many variables, some of which may only become fully clear as the work progresses.
“As the site will be under forensic control at all times during the excavation, we have encouraged families and survivors to visit the site, if they wished to do so, in recent weeks.”
June 16, 2025: Pre-excavation works begin at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)June 16, 2025: Pre-excavation works begin at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)
On Monday, campaigner Peter Mulryan, who was fostered out of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home to an abusive family when he was a young child, was on hand at the site.
Mulryan was an adult before he learned that he had a younger sister, Marian Bridget Mulryan, who is believed to be among the 796 children who are recorded as having died in the Tuam home.
According to Galway Bay FM, the 80-year-old spoke of his hope that some conclusion would be brought to his search for information about his sister.
June 16, 2025: Peter Mulryan with ODAIT’s Selina Brogan at the site of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. (Andrew Downes)
About the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway
The Tuam Mother and Baby Home was an institution for unmarried mothers and their children. Run by the Bon Secours Sisters, it operated from 1925 to 1961.
In 2014, local amateur historian Catherine Corless was researching the Tuam Home’s history when she discovered records showing that 796 children had died at the Home, but burial records could not be found, sparking suspicion of a mass grave at the site.
June 12, 2025: Catherine Corless at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway ahead of the pre-excavation works. (RollingNews.ie)
“Significant quantities” of human remains were discovered at the site in 2016 and 2017.
In January 2021, nearly six years after the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation was launched, the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was published.
Including the Tuam Home, the Commission investigated 18 homes across Ireland, ultimately finding that “a total of about 9,000 children died in the institutions under investigation – about 15% of all the children who were in the institutions.”
The report later states: “There is no single explanation for the appalling level of infant mortality in Irish mother and baby homes.”
The report says that “a particular catalyst” for the formation of the investigative Commission “was the discovery by Catherine Corless of the possible burial arrangements for children who died in the Tuam Children’s Home.”
Following the publication of the report, the Irish Government offered a formal apology to victims, survivors, and their relatives.
In November 2021, the Irish Government published its Action Plan for Survivors and Former Residents of Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions. Part of the plan was a commitment to “advance burials legislation to support the excavation, exhumation and, where possible, identification of remains, and their dignified reburial.”
In July 2022, the Institutional Burials Act became law, allowing exhumations to take place at former Mother and Baby Homes across Ireland. The Irish Government established ODAIT as part of the Act that October, and in May 2023, Daniel MacSweeney was tasked with overseeing the excavations of children’s remains at the site at Tuam.
On Monday, Corless told Galway Bay FM that she is “very relieved, finally, that this is coming to pass.”
She said it has been a “long, long journey all those years, just waiting for this. But it’s happening now.”
Corless praised Daniel MacSweeney, the head of the ODAIT.
“The way he works, he works very carefully, he makes sure he knows what he’s doing,” Corless said.
“I have great faith in him; he has everything in place. He has a forensic team, he has expert archaeologists. He picked people who were dedicated to this excavation.”
www.irishcentral.com (Article Sourced Website)
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