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Mass grave found at Irish orphanage


Investigators in Ireland announced Friday the discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children at a former Catholic orphanage. The finding by a state-appointed commission confirms a local historian’s suspicion that children who died at the facility, mostly in the 1950s, were not given proper burials. Excavations at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains.” DNA analysis confirmed the age of death ranged from 35 weeks to 3 years. The facility, which closed in 1961, was one of more than a dozen Catholic-run homes in Ireland for orphans, unwed mothers, and their children. In 2014, local Tuam historian Catherine Corless found death certificates for nearly 800 children who lived at the facility, but a burial record for only one.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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