Woman Said 800 Babies Were Likely Buried Under a Building — and Excavators Just Made a Horrifying Discovery By Christina Coulter

Nearly 800 children died at a church-run home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, Ireland — and forensic teams are now recovering some of their remains from what was once a sewage system, officials said in an update this week.

The Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT), said in a release this week that seven sets of infant remains were recently recovered from an underground vaulted structure on the grounds of the former Mother and Baby Home. Testing to determine how old the remains are and when the children died is underway, with results expected to take several months, the agency said.

The Tuam property has had multiple institutional uses over time: it served as a workhouse from 1841 to 1918 — where poor people were housed and put to work in exchange for food and shelter — then as a military barracks from 1918 to 1925 and then as the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home from 1925 to 1961.

Mother-and-baby homes in Ireland were institutions where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth, often run by Catholic orders, and many infants who died there were never formally recorded or buried individually, according to the Associated Press.

The agency said the newest recovery includes the seven sets of infant remains, and that excavation work is continuing in phases across the site. Crews also recorded personal items, including a Bovril jar and a razor, during the same reporting period.

In another excavation area on the grounds, seven sets of historic skeletal remains consistent with the workhouse era have now been recovered in total, the agency said. Those remains are being handled in coordination with the National Museum of Ireland.

Earlier state test excavations confirmed what officials described as “significant quantities” of juvenile remains within what had historically formed part of the home’s sewage system. The agency has not released a full count of how many children may ultimately be recovered.

Catherine Corless, a local historian in Tuam, spent years combing through death certificates and church records from the former home, eventually documenting 796 children who died there. Many of those deaths were never recorded in burial logs. Her work helped raise the alarm that large numbers of children may have been buried without markers or memorials.

Her findings were initially dismissed — and locals accused her of “giving Tuam a bad name,” PEOPLE previously reported.

“It’s been a fierce battle. When I started this, nobody wanted to listen. At last we are righting the wrongs,” Corless, 71, told AFP. “I was just begging: Take the babies out of this sewage system and give them the decent Christian burial that they were denied.”