Preparatory work to identify remains of 800 infants at Irish mother and baby home begins

A worker at the site in Tuam, Co Galway, at the start of preparatory works for a forensic excavation to try to identify the remains of infants who died at the home between 1925 and 1961. Photograph: Andrew Downes/PA

Preliminary work aimed at identifying the remains of nearly 800 infants is starting on the site in Tuam, Co Galway, as Ireland continues to wrestle with the traumatic legacy of its mother and baby homes scandal.

Catherine Corless, a local historian who first sounded the alarm about the dark past of the institution run by nuns from the Bon Secours order, uncovered the names of 796 infants who are believed to have been buried there between 1925 and 1961, some in a disused subterranean septic tank. There were no burial records.