Further infant remains uncovered at former mother-and-baby home

The team excavating the site of a former mother-and-baby institution has found a further eight sets of infant remains, bringing the total number recovered to 77.

Experts who are carrying out the dig at Tuam in County Galway have published their latest regular update.

The institution for unmarried mothers and their children was in operation from 1925 until 1961.

It came to international attention in 2014, after local historian Catherine Corless discovered there were 796 death certificates for children and babies who died there, but no burial records.

The remains recovered were in an area on the western edge of the site, which has been identified in historical documents as a “burial ground”, although there were no markers on the surface to indicate there were graves beneath.

The Irish government has commissioned an agency known as the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT), to carry out the excavation, which began in July 2025.

ODAIT’s latest update covers its work in April and May of this year.

During that period, the team found a further eight sets of infant remains, in coffins.

Other hand excavations have revealed what the experts are describing as “evidence of additional potential graves of child or infant size”.

Work has also begun to excavate soil deposits within an underground “vaulted structure”.

ODAIT said it believed the structure “formed part of a wastewater management system” which was constructed when there was a workhouse on the site from 1841 until 1918.

The agency said it was “unclear” whether the wastewater system was in operation at the time the mother-and-baby institution was operating.

ODAIT has also recovered some separate bones, belonging to adults and infants, which are not from the sets of remains which have already been recovered.

Scientists are finding out whether the bones are from the time of the mother-and-baby institution, or from an earlier period.

Full excavation has not yet begun in the area of a memorial garden, where in 2017 investigators found “significant quantities” of remains” in underground chambers.

‘Disrespectful and unacceptable’

ODAIT is taking DNA samples from relatives of people were in the institution to try to help to identify bodies.

It has collected 22 further samples, bringing the total number to 55.

A team has travelled to the US, the UK and Canada to meet families, and also organisations representing the Irish diaspora.

The institution at Tuam was owned by Galway County Council and run by a religious order, the Bon Secours Sisters.

The order has previously acknowledged that children and infants were “buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way”, and apologised.

It has contributed £2.14m towards the cost of the excavation.

Galway County Council also apologised for “failing mothers and children” after the inquiry report in 2021.

The excavation is expected to continue until 2027, with follow-up work expected to last several more years.