The bodies of five women who died at a home for unmarried mothers are believed to be buried in an unmarked mass grave with nearly 800 missing children, according to new research.
The single mothers, aged between 24 and 42, were inmates in the controversial Tuam institution run by the Bon Secours nuns in County Galway, Ireland, from 1925 to 1961.
The home made headlines around the world in June 2014 when the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed that no burial records existed for 796 children who died there – and prompted the establishment of a Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby homes.
Reports show that the children suffered malnutrition and neglect, which caused the deaths of many, while others died of measles, convulsions, TB, gastroenteritis and pneumonia.
Evidence gathered by local historian Catherine Corless strongly suggests the babies were buried in a mass grave behind the property.
Letters written by the Bon Secours nuns, eyewitnesses and the blueprints of the home all support the existence of the unmarked grave.
Now further investigations carried out by Ms Corless reveal that nine mothers died in the home during its existence. But burial records exist for only four of the nine.
The nine were Kathleen Tully, 29, Dunmore, Co. Galway; Annie Reilly, 39, Loughrea, Co. Galway; Mary Anne Rock, 42, Ballina, Co. Mayo; Margaret Henry, 24, Bushfield, Co. Mayo; Mary McLoughlin, 27, Belfast; Mary Joyce, Connemara; Annie Roughneen, 42, Claremorris, Co. Mayo; Bridget O’Reilly, 32, Ballina; and Mary Hickey, 36, Loughrea.
All burials must be registered with the local authority, with the location of the grave noted. Ms Corless combed the records for graveyards in the Tuam area and in the graveyards surrounding the townlands of origin of all nine women – but no records exist for five of them.
There are no burial records for Mary Hickey, Mary Joyce and Bridget O’Reilly. Annie Roughneen and Margaret Henry are also two of the women for whom no burial records exist.
Both had children – Annie and James respectively – who also died and are among the 796 children believed to be in the mass grave.
This week, the MoS was able to tell the family of Kathleen Tully that she was buried in the family plot in Dunmore – but that her name was never carved on the headstone.
Her daughter Catherine, who was born in the Tuam home, came from London to search for her mother.
Grim: The controversial Tuam Mother and Baby Home run by the Bon Secours nuns from 1925 to 1961
She visited the family grave but died in 2008 without ever learning that her mother was buried there.
Ms Corless told the MoS: ‘There are five women I can’t account for. I have searched high and low.
‘All I can say for certain is that four of the mothers are buried in their family plots. They are not necessarily on the headstones but the interment books say they are there. That leaves me with five that I cannot account for.
'Like the 796 children I have gone into this with as much detail as I possibly can but there is no way we can prove this unless we go on to the site and dig. No one will ever know unless we dig that area.’
Mary Hickey was 36 when she died on June 3, 1961. Her baby, Patricia, was born on the same day. There is no death cert for her child, meaning she was either adopted or fostered.
Ms Corless said: ‘Her baby’s cert said she was from Ranamacken, Loughrea, so I went there and searched with the graveyard caretakers. Galway County Council’s archivists checked too and no Mary Hickey showed up.’
Bridget O’Reilly, 32, gave birth to her son Martin Joseph on July 10, 1946. She died from measles in the home on May 20, 1947, and there is no burial record for her either.
Ms Corless said: ‘There is an address for Cloghans. I went to Ballina and checked the burial records and there’s nothing for her.’
Annie Roughneen, 42, was from Ballyglass, Claremorris, and died in the home on August 13, 1941, from pulmonary tuberculosis. Her baby Annie died at three weeks old on July 29, 1941.
Ms Corless said: ‘I went to that area and checked the graves and went to Claremorris but I can’t come up with anything.’
Margaret Henry, 24, from Bushfield, Co. Mayo, died on April 4, 1940, from cardiac failure. Her baby James had died on March 11 aged five weeks.
Catherine said: ‘I really went into this death thoroughly. I had to go to Claremorris. I tried a few areas there. There is absolutely no record for her at all.’
Mary Joyce died on August 25, 1948, of whooping cough and cardiac failure. There is no burial record. She had a baby Mary.
Ms Corless said: ‘Mary Bridget Joyce was born to Mary Joyce in June 1946. Mary Bridget is probably alive – there is no death cert for her.’
In response to questions from the MoS, the order issued a statement: ‘The Sisters of Bon Secours ceased operating the Tuam home in 1961 and, at the instructions of the local authority, handed the files back to them.
‘As the Commission of Investigation has now been established, the Sisters of Bon Secours do not believe it would be appropriate to comment further except to say that they will cooperate fully with that commission.’
My grandmother died in Tuam but we had no idea where she was buried. Until now...
In the faded photograph, a woman kneels beside her grandparents’ grave in a country churchyard in Galway. She had travelled from her home in London on a pilgrimage to find the family she never knew and the mother of whom she has no memory.
For Catherine Tully was born out of wedlock in the notorious Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Her mother, Kathleen, had died from septicaemia four months after she was born. Catherine, an orphan, was left in the home until she was five.
Tragically, her search for her mother’s resting place proved futile and she died without ever knowing where Kathleen Tully was buried.
Irony: Catherine Tully unknowingly visits her mother’s grave in Co. Galway. She died without knowing where her mother had been buried because her name had not been put on the headstone
Kathleen Tully - Catherine's mother who died in the Tuam home. Unbeknown to Catherine, her mother was laid to rest in her grandparents’ grave but – perhaps because of the prevailing stigma of illegitimacy at the time – her name was never added to the headstone in Shanballymore graveyard in Dunmore, Co. Galway
Catherine Tully when she made her communion with her foster family in Maree National School Oranmore Co. Galway when she was 7
But this week, after exhaustive research by Catherine Corless, the Irish Mail on Sunday was able to inform the Tully family where Kathleen was laid to rest.
Unbeknown to Catherine Tully, her mother was under her feet, laid to rest in her grandparents’ grave but – perhaps because of the prevailing stigma of illegitimacy at the time – her name was never added to the headstone in Shanballymore graveyard in Dunmore, Co. Galway.
Close: Catherine Tully with her daughter, Teresa McHugh Waldron
It is just one more example of the terrible legacy left by Catholic-run mother and baby homes and their treatment of thousands of unmarried mothers and their babies.
Children born in the institutions were separated from their mothers, often fostered or illegally adopted and left without an identity.
Catherine Tully’s daughter Teresa McHugh Waldron, from London, described the revelation as a ‘bitter sweet tragedy’.
She said: ‘Oh dear, my mum went about 20 years ago to see that grave. The name was not on the headstone. God help my mum! God help her, but thank God for that, thank God she went to the right grave.
‘It is a bittersweet tragedy but at least they are together now, bless them. We didn't know she was in there. We met some family and they took her to the cemetery but there was no name on it. I got in touch with the priest and he wasn’t there and it was very difficult to find out.
‘There was an old gravestone on it with Julia and Thomas my greatgrandparents, then another two family members went in there too.
My mum kind of lost touch with her family. I’m really happy she went to that grave now, really happy. Someone said, “She’s probably down there”, but there was no name on it so we never knew. But we took pictures, so that is lovely. We are happy to contribute to have our grandmother’s name put on the headstone.’
Historian Ms Corless’s research has revealed that Kathleen Tully was one of at least nine mothers who died in the Tuam home – and one of only four for whom burial records exist. The other five are presumed to have been buried in the mass grave behind the home, where as many as 796 children could also be buried.
Teresa said: ‘But it’s the other women now and all of those babies that are in the big grave, the unmarked one in Tuam. I find that so sad. You can feel very alone in the world. I think my mum felt very alone, she was always thinking, “Do I have a sister out there? Do I have a mother out there?” It must be very strange not knowing and wondering is there anyone who looks like you and having that connection. It’s very sad when I was looking and asking people about my family. You just feel like a nuisance.
Family: Catherine Tully with daughters Christina (left) whom she had as a single mother, and Teresa (right)
‘My mum deserves recognition. She was a wonderful woman. No one has ever made her real, or my grandmother.
They are real people. We didn’t know for years that Kathleen died in the Tuam home. We had to find all these things out ourselves.’
Catherine Tully was born in the Tuam home on February 24, 1944. Kathleen died four months later on June 19, aged 29.
Teresa said: ‘My mother wasn’t officially adopted. She just went to live with the Greely family in Oranmore, like a foster child. This lady, Maureen Greely, went to the home in Tuam and said she wanted a little girl for this other little girl she was fostering, so they could be friends.
'My mum was five, she lived in that place until she was five. It was like she didn’t have a history, she never spoke about her childhood. She never wanted to talk about it. My mum never felt like she belonged with the Greelys – she felt like an outsider. They looked after her well but it wasn’t like your own family. I said it was better than being in that home.
‘My mum went and trained as an auxiliary nurse in the Galway Hospital and she saved up her money and wanted to come to England, I think to escape. Jobs were quite rare and there were a lot of jobs in London. She came over on her own, went to Islington and settled.
‘When she used to go back to Ireland, she used to hate it. Her friends would say, “Oh, I’m going home this year” but my mother didn’t feel like that.’
In London, Catherine, who was not married, fell pregnant and, like her mother, ended up in a motherand-baby home.
In 1967, she gave birth to her daughter Christina, who was about to be given up for adoption when Catherine told the nuns she was not letting her daughter go and refused to sign the papers.
Teresa said: ‘I think she realised what her mum had gone through and she was going to be adopted and everything and at the last minute, my mum said, “I’m not giving you the baby”, and wouldn’t sign the papers. So I have a lovely older sister because of her.’
Catherine raised Christina in a flat with a friend who helped her with the baby while she worked in hotels as a chambermaid.
‘I’m so happy my mum held on to my older sister, good on her. It was amazing she did that. My mother shared this flat with her friend Mary and they would help each other out. Mary would say, “You go off to work and I’ll mind Christina”, and then the lady downstairs would have my sister when mum had to do her night shift. They all helped each other.’
Catherine went on to meet Vincent McHugh and the couple, who were together for 30 years, had three children, Teresa, Margaret and Vincent.
‘They didn’t get married for years but they were together a long time. Dad was a civil engineer and mum eventually went back to work in the hospitals and worked with people who had dementia.
‘They did well for themselves. They owned their own home and worked very hard. My dad was lovely and so was my mother. Dad never got stroppy or lost it. He was quiet. He worked for years but he got cancer from the asbestos and died 21 years ago.
I felt sorry for my mum. It was like she had no identity, no background. She never spoke about her past. I think she believed she was not allowed to
Catherine Tully
‘Then my older sister, Christina, wanted to find her real dad so they went back to the same place my mum met him and he was still there. So then my mother decided, “I want to find my mum.” I think for all those years, she thought she wasn’t allowed to look for her.
'But she went to the grave and didn’t know her mother was there. My mum was only 61 when she died – she got cancer. I think she got it because she was always worried and stressed about what people thought of her. She was such a lovely person, you wouldn’t think she had a strict background.
'She hardly learned anything at school. She was always afraid of getting things wrong in school and getting slapped.
‘My mum had real trouble reading. She couldn’t grasp it at all. She was very kind.
‘I felt sorry for my mum. It was like she had no identity, no background. She never spoke about her past. I think she believed she was not allowed to.
‘I got in touch with the Galway registrar about six years ago and he sent me the certificates for my grandmother, who died in that home when my mother was only four months old. We went looking for my mum’s mum years ago, when my mum was alive. We managed to find some of her family. They thought she [Kathleen] might be in the grave, but there was no name on the headstone so she wasn’t there.
'So in that grave, there are four people plus Kathleen but her name is not there. We wanted to do something, like put a plaque somewhere, but I wasn’t sure.
‘I think I know who the dad might have been. It seems like she got married to a Charles man and he died and then she was left pregnant with my mum. I don’t know why she never took his name. It is so bittersweet.’
In a letter to the sister of Tuam Home brothers John Desmond and William Joseph Dolan in 2012, the Bon Secours nuns said one of the brothers, John, who died in the home must be buried in the ‘children’s graveyard’ at the back of the home.
This suggests the nuns were aware of the grave, and is apparently in conflict with statement they released last year saying they were ‘shocked and saddened’ by the news of the mass unmarked grave.
Catherine Tully had died before the story about the Tuam babies made headlines around the world.
‘I panicked when I heard about it,’ says Teresa. ‘I thought my grandmother died and was in that grave. I wondered about my mother and felt so sorry for my poor mum. I wondered how she would feel if she knew the truth, because she was born in there and her mum died when she was a baby.
'My mother didn’t even know she died in there but they are together now bless them’.
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