Ireland has recovered the remains of 99 infants from the former Tuam mother and baby home; DNA analysis may help restore some of their identities

Photo credit: Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam Ireland has now recovered the remains of 99 infants and children from the site of the former Tuam mother and baby home in County Galway, a place that has become a symbol of one of the darkest chapters in the country’s institutional history. The new discoveries, announced in a recent update, are part of an ongoing forensic excavation that is slowly bringing to light what happened to hundreds of babies who died there, and may, through DNA analysis, finally restore some of their names and identities, as per reports.The institution, officially known as the Tuam Mother and Baby Institution, was owned by Galway County Council and run by the Bon Secours Sisters, an order of Catholic nuns, between 1925 and 1961. It housed unmarried mothers and their children at a time when pregnancy outside marriage was heavily stigmatized in Ireland. For decades, what happened behind its walls remained largely hidden. That changed in 2014, when local historian Catherine Corless painstakingly uncovered 796 death certificates for infants and young children who died at the home but no corresponding burial records. Her research raised a hau...