Mass grave containing remains of babies discovered in sewage tank at notorious mother and baby home where ‘800 children died’
Those involved in the find said: "We will honour their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately"
A MASS grave thought to contain the remains of babies and young children has been discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland where almost 800 perished in deaths that were never documented.
The Mother and Baby Homes Commission said excavations since November at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, had made disturbing discoveries.
Investigators have found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing "significant quantities of human remains".
DNA analysis of selected remains confirmed the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks to three years old and were buried mainly in the 1950s.
The home closed in 1961.
Today's findings offer the first pieces of evidence after decades of suspicions that the vast majority of children who died at the home had been buried on the site in unmarked graves during the period of high child mortality rates across Ireland.
The probe was launched in 2014 after local historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who had died as residents of the facility.
However she could find only one child's burial record.
Corless said: "Everything pointed to this area being a mass grave."
Katherine Zappone, the government's commissioner for children, said the findings were "sad and disturbing."