Excavation of some gardens will be necessary in Tuam

THE location where the remains of 99 infants have been recovered was not known to be a possible burial ground until 2016.

The piece of ground had been used as a roadway to access residents’ back gardens and covered. It was walked upon for years by those visiting the grassed memorial garden at the far corner of the site of the former Mother and Baby Home.

Director of ODAIT Daniel MacSweeney says a number of back gardens of residents in the Dublin Road estate will have to be dug up and some sheds demolished as the excavation of this area continues. The coffined remains have all been found in a concentrated area and it’s not known how far this burial site extends.

This burial site is different to what the previous test excavations found at the memorial garden during the Commission of Investigation. Underneath the garden in the disused sewage tank there are at least 20 individual chambers which all have large quantities of co-mingled remains and which have been mixed with modern waste.

Mr MacSweeney said residents around the site have been hugely co-operative and understanding and he is adamant that all gardens and buildings will be restored and rebuilt.

Forensic Archaeologist Dr. Niamh McCullagh said when she visited the site many years ago there was no indication that there was a burial ground beneath the surface currently being worked on. They became aware of it from a map from Galway County Council which was part of a planning file that wasn’t freely available to the public.

Dr. McCullagh says her experience with the people of Tuam and residents in the excavation area has been “extremely positive.”

“We’re all very conscious of the difficult situation that they’re in. We’re conscious even when we speak out loud on the site that this is the back of somebody’s home. We are being very respectful.

“On a daily basis we’re walking through a housing estate, meeting the same people, the same dogs bark, we walk around the same cars parked, so I think that I hope we have been integrated into the community but we do acknowledge that it is a situation that they don’t want to be in.”