Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.
8.
“I feel like this has been a lonely battle that I have been fighting,” she said.
“It should never have taken this long. But we’re where we are.
“I did it for my mother, and for John and William.”
Anna said the excavation is necessary to reveal the full extent of what happened at the mother and baby home, and to bring closure for those still seeking answers.
“It is a humanitarian disaster,” she said.
“It’s a legacy of shame in this country.”
The Detective
Detective Chief Superintendent Walter O’Sullivan has been working on the Tuam case since 2017.
It is a deeply emotional investigation, he says. The team at the Irish police – An Garda Síochána – are working to determine if any criminal action took place around the deaths of the children and the treatment of women at the institution.
Walter says they have collected more than 140 statements and there have been “significant revelations” in their examination of decades-old files, census documents and records from the Bon Secours Sisters and the state.
It’s meticulous work.
He talks about how yesterday’s technology – including ground-penetrating radar and DNA profiling – is helping to provide new leads.
“In the main burial pit – it’s about 200 square metres – the children were just stacked in.”
He describes the pain of hearing from survivors who recall the often harrowing experiences they faced.
“The saddest thing was people who are now elderly and talking to us about the loss of their siblings – younger brothers and sisters who they never got to know or see grow up.”
But now, with the excavation, “we can give some clarity to the families.”
“Professionally, I have worked on some detailed searches in the past,” says Walter.
“But this one really is personally emotional, because of the scale of it – because of the amount of children involved.”
He said the work could continue for a long time, but they will push on.
It’s important.
“In terms of the judicial process, success is being able to get justice and protect further generations,” he said.
The Harbinger
Local historian Catherine Corless has worked tirelessly to bring attention to the story of the Tuam babies.
It is impossible for her to walk down the street without someone raising the case.
“It’s been all we’ve been talking about for years,” she said.
But she’s glad the empty site has started to give up its secrets.
“At long last, the babies have a voice,” she said.
Catherine first came across the story in 2012 and the plight of the children at the home has consumed her since.
She discovered that there were no burial certificates for the children who died there.
She’s “astounded” at the revelations that have been made – and questions why the authorities have not released certain details.
“We’re unearthing this as if it’s 30 years ago.Embalmers in stark white coats and gloves work methodically through the cramped cemetery site in Tuam, County Galway.
Underneath a marquee, the team, clad in personal protection equipment, co-ordinate with forensic experts from around the world to recover the remains of potentially hundreds of babies and infants – placed here between 1925 and 1961 in secret chambers inside a disused septic tank.
Many of the babies died of malnutrition and infectious diseases, according to their death certificates; the 79 recorded deaths included tragic listings for children as young as three days old.
It is a story that has shocked the world.
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman established the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, which concluded the extent of the practices in Tuam’s Bon Secours home was “appalling”.
Irish authorities have now launched an excavation at the Tuam site to recover the remains of the babies and provide dignity to their short lives.
But for many people, including families of some of the lost children, the recovery is only one part of the long ordeal.
觀察者 The Elucidation
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.
