The ending of one day and the dawning of another, but what a long day it has been.
An appropriate take, I think, on my ten-year struggle to tease out the truth of what happened in Tuam, and to open the ears of those who govern us, guide us and preach to us.
The 796 babies and young children from the Tuam mother and baby home are missing, but nobody cared. Worse still, those involved who knew about those babies did their utmost to quell and quieten my efforts to expose the truth. I was alone on this journey, a voice in the wilderness.
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The appointment of Daniel McSweeney as Director (to oversee the excavation of the Tuam site, the exhumation, forensic DNA testing, and a dignified burial for the babies), is most welcome.
He is well rehearsed in this area of work and has, for the last 15 years with the Red Cross, been in charge of multiple exhumations in war-torn countries, where thousands of people were missing, and buried in mass graves.
My hope is that this time around there will be immediate action. This Director should have been appointed back in 2017, when my research was vindicated by the discovery of the babies’ remains in the chambers of the sewage system.
By carbon dating, it was proven that the remains belonged to the era of when the Tuam Home was in operation. The Government at the time blared out sentiments of horror and shock, and I thought my work was done, but no, another six years was to pass before anything happened.
We know, from the sparse information announced this week, that Mr McSweeney will be based in a Galway office, and that he will meet with those who have family in the Tuam pit. Already he will have to hand a detailed expert technical report drawn up in 2017 by Dr Niamh McCullagh and team, the archaeologists who carried out the test excavations at the site.
This also includes a geophysical and engineering survey undertaken as part of the Engineering Technology Group’s work.
Dr McCullagh also declared at the time that the exhumation should begin within a six-month period, as the protective layers that they placed over the tank’s chambers was only a temporary measure, and there would be a risk of deterioration to the little skeletal remains if left longer.
Her expertise and advice had fallen on deaf ears. For those who have brothers, sisters and near relatives in the chambers of that sewage facility it has been a soul-crushing wait, a burden they should not have had to carry. Their desperate need has been all along to give that precious baby a dignified burial with a little white coffin, which was denied them by the twisted mentality of a Church’s teaching that illegitimate offspring carried the sin of the mother and would not be worthy of any decency.
The knowledge that the excavation will now take place brings them hope that perhaps at last they can retrieve those little remains and bury them in their family plot. We are not given a timeline as yet, as to when this whole process will actually begin, but I am hoping to meet with Mr McSweeney shortly, and I know that he will make some public announcement about this.
It is gratifying for me to know that my efforts have been worthwhile, a terrible wrong is being upturned, the Truth has won out, and this leaves a strong message to future generations.
- Catherine Corless is a historian.
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