https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/new-baby-graveyard-found-at-home-where-796-infants-were-buried-in-septic-tank/news-story/03e6349cbe953ecfffc8a10967023baeNew baby graveyard found at home where 796 infants were buried in septic tank
The lengthy excavation of the area where almost 800 infants were buried at a former mother and baby home has uncovered a new horror.
Rebekah Scanlan
December 26, 2025
A second baby graveyard has been found at the site of a maternity home for unwed mothers run by Catholic nuns in Ireland, where the remains of almost 800 infants were already found buried in a septic tank. Excavations are currently underway at a seemingly inconspicuous patch of grass next to a children’s playground in a small Irish town after a evidence of a mass grave was uncovered. The land, attached to a home run by nuns between 1925 and 1961 in the town of Tuam, 220km west of Dublin, was left largely untouched after the institution was knocked down in 1972. But in 2014, amateur historian Catherine Corless, presented evidence that 796 babies, from newborns to a nine-year-old, had died at Tuam’s mother and baby home, leading to an Irish Commission of Investigation into the so-called mother and baby homes. During its almost 40-year operation, the facility housed a number of women who had become pregnant outside of marriage and were shunned by their families. They were often separated from their children after giving birth. A planned two-year excavation of the unmarked mass burial site began in July, conducted by the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention in Tuam (ODAIT), which has since found evidence of a second burial site at the home. Daniel MacSweeney, who is leading the excavation, told Irish broadcaster RTE a total of 11 sets of infant remains have been discovered in the new location, around 15 metres away from a memorial ground on the site. All were buried in coffins, and date from the period between 1925 and 1961, when the home operated. They were found less than a metre below the old surface, which had been covered by gravel more recently. “We have indications of further potential graves of infant and child size, and over the coming weeks and months we will excavate them and see what we find there,” he said.
“There is also a historic map that shows a larger burial ground in this part of the site. We will also excavate there and see if there are further burials.”
He added that it was advantageous the bodies were in coffins, from the point of view of identifying the remains. In contrast, the 796 bodies found nearby in the septic tank had “no burial records” and “no statue, no cross, absolutely nothing,” Corless said.
The septic tank was initially discovered in 1975, after two boys had been playing on the square of lawn and came across a broken concrete slab. After pulling it up, they found a hole, and inside were bones. However, authorities were told about the grisly discovery, and covered it up, the BBC reports. Locals reportedly believed the remains were from the Irish Famine in the 1840s. Before the mother-and-baby home, the institution was a famine-era workhouse where many people had died. However, that didn’t add up to Corless, who looked at old maps of the site and found the area where the bones were found labelled as a “sewage tank”. Another map, from the 1970s after the home was demolished, had a handwritten note next to that area saying “burial ground”.
The determined local historian later requested the names of all the children who had died at the home from the registration office for births, deaths and marriages in Galway, and was soon presented with a list of 796 names. Her findings weren’t made public until 2014, and led to a six-year inquiry that found 56,000 unmarried women and 57,000 children passed through 18 such homes over a 76-year period. It also concluded that 9000 children had died in the various state and Catholic Church-run homes across Ireland. Excavation was only able to start following the passing of a legislation in 2022 enabling the exhumation, identification, and reburial, with the Bon Secours order, an international Catholic health ministry, contributing financially. Journalist Alison O’Reilly, who broke the story, described it as “the darkest secret in Irish history”.
“People need to know that it’s black and ugly and rotten and what they did to the children that were born in those homes was an absolute disgrace,” she said.
“You wouldn’t do it to a dog.”
