Excavation teams at the former St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway, have recovered 22 additional sets of infant remains between June 1 and July 15, 2026. This discovery brings the total number of remains found at the site to 99 since the current phase of work began in July 2025.
New Discoveries and Excavation Progress
The latest remains were uncovered in a section of the site previously used for vehicle access and covered with gravel, an area that lacked any surface markers indicating potential burials. The work is being overseen by the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT), which has been managing the site since the project commenced last year. The recent update covers a period of approximately six weeks leading up to July 15, 2026. All 99 sets of remains found so far at the location were buried in coffins.
Daniel MacSweeney, the director of ODAIT, noted that the concentration of remains in this area—which was identified via a 1970s Galway County Council planning map—has presented significant logistical hurdles. “To date we have started outside of the memorial garden, in an area where there is a map from a Galway County Council planning file from the 1970s that shows a burial ground, but there’s nothing on the surface to indicate that there’s any burials there and then when we’ve excavated there, this is where we found 99 sets of remains, really very closely together,” MacSweeney said. This concentration of remains buried very closely together, is extremely challenging because each burial is an archaeological context of its own and has to be recovered in that way.
Forensic Analysis and the Identification Programme
The recovered remains are currently being transported to a specialized mortuary and laboratory facility in Toghermore, Tuam, which was outfitted specifically for this project by ODAIT. Forensic experts at the facility are tasked with cleaning, drying, and examining the remains to reconstruct details regarding their lives and deaths, including potential data on age and sex. The process involves sophisticated diagnostic tools, including radiology and 3D scanning. The excavation is working to identify the remains of infants who died at the institution between 1925 and 1961.
Efforts to identify the individuals through DNA analysis continue to advance alongside the physical excavation. During the most recent six-week window, the team collected seven additional DNA reference samples, bringing the total number of samples gathered to 62.
Operational Challenges at the St Mary’s Site
Dr. Niamh McCullagh, a senior forensic consultant at ODAIT, emphasized the unique difficulties inherent in the Tuam site. Unlike a standard archaeological dig in an open field, the project is situated within a populated residential area. If I work from the outside in, the challenge of the physical location of the site, it's within a housing estate that is populated with people living there, the rears of their gardens all face onto this playground area,
she explained. “The physical situation of the chamber tank where the remains were discovered in that sample excavation, they’re over three metres beneath the surface, they’re in 20 individual chambers, all adjacent to one another, and that in itself is also a very physically challenging situation.”
Dr. McCullagh noted that the team must manage limited space to maintain access for the recovery of remains. The St Mary’s home for unmarried mothers and their children was operated by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic religious order of nuns. In 2014, research spearheaded by local historian Catherine Corless suggested that 796 babies and young children were buried in a sewage system at the Co Galway facility during the period the home operated. In 2017, a commission discovered significant quantities
of child and infant remains in subsurface chambered tanks situated in the memorial garden area of the site.
Daniel MacSweeney stated that the project’s progress has vindicated the decision not to begin the search in the memorial garden area immediately. “So there’s all these different elements that are difficult, but I think a year in, I’m quite happy that we’ve now recovered 99 sets of remains in a place where we didn’t really know there were any remains there, so it has, I think, justified our decision not to start with the memorial garden, but to leave it until later,” he said. He added that the team has also successfully dealt with and resolved a very large area at the other end of the site where no remains were found.
In 2021, Irish premier Micheál Martin apologised on behalf of the state for the treatment of women and children who were housed in mother and baby homes across Ireland.
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