<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>This story begins with a forbidden fruit.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>In the 1970s, in a small town in Western Ireland, an orchard owner chased off two boys stealing his apples.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The youngsters avoided being caught by clambering over the stone wall of the derelict Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/australian-exporters-brace-for-new-wave-of-us-tariffs/45ac5223-23f2-48af-b4cf-44c633ab3c7b" target="_blank"><strong><span>Australian exporters watch anxiously as Trump tariff deadline nears</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When they landed, they discovered a dark secret that has </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-ireland-43d509f3013c8d457b3d2f0683dc7efe" rel="" target="" title=""><span>grown to haunt Ireland</span></a><span>.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>One of the boys, Franny Hopkins, remembers the hollow sound as his feet hit the ground. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He and Barry Sweeney pushed back some briars to reveal a concrete slab they pried open.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/just-a-jumble-of-bones-how-a-baby-grave-discovery-has-grown-to-haunt-ireland/9fb7a915-6a4a-4f4b-b629-606d87815f1f" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"There was just a jumble of bones," Hopkins said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We didn't know if we'd found a treasure or a nightmare."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Hopkins didn't realise they'd found a mass unmarked baby grave in a former septic tank in a town whose name is derived from the Irish word meaning burial place.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It took four decades and a persistent local historian to unearth a more troubling truth that led this month to the </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/ireland-tuam-mother-baby-home-catholic-excavation-5da9675932bb08a4f2ea7b52950e006d"><span>start of an excavation</span></a><span> that could exhume the remains of almost 800 infants and young children.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Tuam grave has compelled a broader reckoning that extends to the highest levels of government in Dublin and the Vatican.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Ireland and the Catholic Church, once central to its identity, are grappling with the legacy of ostracising unmarried women who they believed committed a mortal sin and separating them from children left at the mercy of a cruel system.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>An unlikely investigator</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Word of Hopkins' discovery may never have travelled beyond what is left of the home's walls if not for the work of Catherine Corless, a homemaker with an interest in history.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corless, who grew up in town and vividly remembers children from the home being shunned at school, set out to write an article about the site for the local historical society.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But she soon found herself chasing ghosts of lost children.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/man-arrested-in-uk-over-suspected-poisoning-at-childrens-camp/7ce74285-6181-492d-b3cd-2bb5101de24b" target="_blank"><strong><span>Man, 76, arrested in UK on suspicion of administering poison at children's camp</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"I thought I was doing a nice story about orphans and all that, and the more I dug, the worse it was getting," she said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Mother and baby homes were not unique to Ireland, but the church's influence on social values magnified the stigma on women and girls who became pregnant outside marriage.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The homes were opened in the 1920s after Ireland won its independence from Britain.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Most were run by Catholic nuns.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>In Tuam's case, the mother and baby home opened in a former workhouse built in the 1840s for poor Irish where many famine victims died.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It had been taken over by British troops during the Irish Civil War of 1922-23.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Six members of an Irish Republican Army faction that opposed the treaty ending the war were executed there in 1923.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Two years later, the imposing three-story gray buildings on the outskirts of town reopened as a home for expectant and young mothers and orphans.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It was run for County Galway by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic order of nuns.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The buildings were primitive, poorly heated, with running water only in the kitchen and maternity ward.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Large dormitories housed upward of 200 children and 100 mothers at a time.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corless found a dearth of information in her local library, but was horrified to learn that women banished by their families were essentially incarcerated there.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>They worked for up to a year before being cast out, most of them forever separated from their children.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>So deep was the shame of being pregnant outside marriage that women were often brought there surreptitiously.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Peter Mulryan, who grew up in the home, learned decades later that his mother was six months pregnant when she was taken by bicycle from her home under the cover of darkness.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The local priest arranged it after telling her father she was "causing a scandal in the parish".</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Mothers and their children carried that stigma most of their lives.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But there was no accountability for the men who got them pregnant, whether by romantic encounter, rape, or incest.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>More shocking, though, was the high number of deaths Corless found.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When she searched the local cemetery for a plot for the home's babies, she found nothing.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>Long-lost brothers</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Around the time Corless was unearthing the sad history, Anna Corrigan was in Dublin discovering a secret of her own.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corrigan, raised as an only child, vaguely remembered a time as a girl when her uncle was angry at her mother and blurted out that she had given birth to two sons.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>To this day, she's unsure if it's a memory or a dream.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>While researching her late father's traumatic childhood confined in an industrial school for abandoned, orphaned, or troubled children, she asked a woman helping her for any records about her deceased mum.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corrigan was devastated when she got the news: before she was born, her mother had two boys in the Tuam home.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/travel-news-italian-farmers-set-up-dolomites-mountain-turnstiles-to-charge-access-to-instagram-spots/bd570b91-6c89-40d0-bce9-d931ea7526ca" target="_blank"><strong><span>Fed-up Italian farmers set up mountain turnstiles to charge access to Instagram hot spots</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"I cried for brothers I didn't know, because now I had siblings, but I never knew them," she said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Her mother never spoke a word about it.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A 1947 inspection record provided insights into a crowded and deadly environment.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Twelve of 31 infants in a nursery were emaciated.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Other children were described as "delicate," "wasted," or with "wizened limbs".</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corrigan's brother, John Dolan, weighed almost 9 pounds (4.08kg) when he was born but was described as "a miserable, emaciated child with voracious appetite and no control over his bodily functions, probably mentally defective".</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He died two months later in a measles outbreak.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Despite a high death rate, the report said infants were well cared for and diets were excellent.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corrigan's brother, William, was born in May 1950 and listed as dying about eight months later. There was no death certificate, though, and his date of birth was altered on the ledger, which was sometimes done to mask adoptions, Corrigan said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Ireland was very poor at the time, and infant mortality rates were high.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Some 9000 babies or 15 per cent died in 18 mother and baby homes that were open as late as 1998, a government commission found.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>In the 1930s and 1940s, more than 40 per cent of children died some years in their homes before their first birthday.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Tuam recorded the highest death percentage before closing in 1961.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Nearly a third of the children died there.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>In a hunt for graves, the cemetery caretaker led Corless across the street to the neighbourhood and playground where the home once stood.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A well-tended garden with flowers, a grotto, and a Virgin Mary statue was walled off in the corner. It was created by a couple living next door to memorialise the place where Hopkins found the bones.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Some were thought to be famine remains.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But that was before Corless discovered the garden sat atop the septic tank installed after the famine.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She wondered if the nuns had used the tank as a convenient burial place after it went out of service in 1937, hidden behind the home's three-metre-high walls.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It saved them admitting that so, so many babies were dying," she said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Nobody knew what they were doing."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>A sensational story</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When she published her article in the Journal of the Old Tuam Society in 2012, she braced for outrage. Instead, she heard almost nothing.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That changed, though, after Corrigan, who had been busy pursuing records and contacting officials from the prime minister to the police, found Corless.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corrigan connected her with journalist Alison O'Reilly and the international media took notice after her May 25, 2014, article on the Sunday front page of the </span><em><span>Irish Mail</span></em><span> with the headline: "A Mass Grave of 800 Babies."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The article caused a firestorm, followed by some blowback.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Some news outlets, including </span><a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-1099b2f1897b4d3a98d6f90af2bd7f9e"><span>The Associated Press</span></a><span>, highlighted sensational reporting and questioned whether a septic tank could have been used as a grave.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Bon Secours sisters hired public relations consultant Terry Prone, who tried to steer journalists away.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/pro-palestine-protest-on-sydney-harbour-bridge-court-decision/5e0e2761-4185-497e-8ec6-458d1af3e682" target="_blank"><strong><span>Decision day for Sydney Harbour Bridge protest by pro-Palestine supporters</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"If you come here, you'll find no mass grave," she said in an email to a French TV company.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"No evidence that children were ever so buried, and a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying, 'Yeah, a few bones were found, but this was an area where famine victims were buried. So?'"</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Despite the doubters, there was widespread outrage.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corless was inundated by people looking for relatives on the list of 796 deaths she compiled.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Those reared with the stain of being "illegitimate" found their voice.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Mulryan, who lived in the home until he was 4 and a half, spoke about being abused as a foster child working on a farm, shoeless for much of the year, barely schooled, underfed, and starved for kindness.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We were afraid to open our mouths, you know, we were told to mind our own business," Mulryan said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It's a disgrace. This church and the state had so much power, they could do what they liked, and there was nobody to question them."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Then-Prime Minister Enda Kenny said the children were treated as an "inferior subspecies" as he announced an investigation into mother and baby homes.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When a test excavation confirmed in 2017 that skeletons of babies and toddlers were in the old septic tank, Kenny dubbed it a "chamber of horrors."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Pope Francis </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/36b31ae6dfc3439ea2a45f07769136cb"><span>acknowledged the scandal</span></a><span> during his 2018 visit to Ireland when he apologised for the church's "crimes" that included child abuse and forcing unmarried mothers to give up their children.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It took five years before the government probe primarily blamed the children's fathers and women's families in its expansive 2021 report.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The state and churches played a supporting role in the harsh treatment, but it noted that the institutions, despite their failings, provided a refuge when families would not.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Some survivors saw the report as a damning vindication, while others branded it a whitewash.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Prime Minister Micheál Martin apologised, saying mothers and children paid a terrible price for the nation's "perverse religious morality."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"The shame was not theirs, it was ours," Martin said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Bon Secours sisters offered a profound apology and acknowledged that children were disrespectfully buried.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We failed to respect the inherent dignity of the women and children," Sister Eileen O'Connor said. "We failed to offer them the compassion that they so badly needed."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>The dig</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When a crew including forensic scientists and archaeologists began digging at the site two weeks ago, Corless was "on a different planet," amazed that the work was underway after so many years.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It is expected to take two years to collect bones, many of which are commingled, sort them, and use DNA to try to identify them with relatives like Corrigan.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Dig director Daniel MacSweeney, who previously worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross to identify missing persons in conflict zones in Afghanistan and Lebanon, said it is a uniquely difficult undertaking.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We cannot underestimate the complexity of the task before us, the challenging nature of the site, as you will see, the age of the remains, the location of the burials, the dearth of information about these children and their lives," MacSweeney said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Nearly 100 people, some from the US, Britain, Australia, and Canada, have either provided DNA or contacted them about doing so.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Some people in town believe the remains should be left undisturbed.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Patrick McDonagh, who grew up in the neighbourhood, said a priest had blessed the ground after Hopkins' discovery and Masses were held there regularly.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/feels-like-temperature-vs-actual-what-is-the-difference-explained/ad93cb4f-9d11-4dd4-ba19-df84bdb25971" target="_blank"><strong><span>Do you rely on the 'feels like' temperature or the actual one?</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A week before ground was broken, a bus delivered a group of the home's aging survivors and relatives of mothers who toiled there to the neighbourhood of rowhouses that ring the playground and memorial garden.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A passageway between two homes led them through a gate in metal fencing erected to hide the site that has taken on an industrial look.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Beyond grass, where children once played and beneath which children may be buried, were storage containers, a dumpster, and an excavator poised for digging.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It would be their last chance to see it before it's torn up, and maybe the bones of their kin recovered so they can be properly buried.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Corrigan, who likes to say that justice delayed Irish-style is "delay, deny 'til we all go home and die," hopes each child is found.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"They were denied dignity in life, and they were denied dignity and respect in death," she said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"So we're hoping that today maybe will be the start of hearing them because I think they've been crying for an awful long time to be heard."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span></span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. 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