796 bodies of infants and children were found in an abandoned septic tank in a town called Tuam, in County Galway, Ireland. The bodies are believed to have been dumped there between 1925 and 1961.

This tragic news, as reported by IrishCentral.Com, has opened a whole can of worms against the Irish Catholic Church – the site is actually a former mother-and-baby home that took in unwed mothers called The Home, run by the Sisters of Bon Secours Congregation.

Catherine Corless, a local Tuam historian and genealogist, told IrishCentral.Com that she remembers the Home Babies well when she was growing up and going to school.

“They were always segregated to the side of the regular classrooms. By doing this, the nuns telegraphed the message that they were different and that we should keep away from them,” she is reported as saying.

Corless also added that if regular students were to act undisciplined in school, the nuns would punish them by seating them next to the Home Babies. She also told of instances when her friend would wrap stones in candy wrappers and give them to the Home Babies.

“When the child opened it, she saw that she’d been fooled. Of course I copied her (Corless’ friend) later and I tried to play the joke on another little Home girl. I thought it was funny at that time,” IrishCentral.Com quoted Corless as saying.

That guilt has stayed with Corless and that is why she is now adamant in highlighting the tragic story of the Home Babies. She has conducted intensive research on the goings-on of The Home and been digging up old records.

According to IrishCentral.Com, a local health board inspection report from April 1944 stated that 271 children and 61 single mothers were living at The Home. This came to a total of 333 residents in a building that had a capacity of only 243.

The report also documented how neglected and malnourished the children who were living there were. The reported stated that the children had “flesh hanging loosely on limbs” and were “poor, emaciated and not thriving”.

The Home operated for 36 years between 1926 and 1961, and Tuam locals told journalists that the children, because of their ‘illegitimate’ and ‘sinful’ status, were thought to be social outcast and were duly treated as such.

Corless had contacted the Bon Secours sisters but they have moved away from Tuam in 1961 and handed over all records and documents regarding The Home to the Western Health Board. The board, in turn, told her they have no general information on the daily running of the place.

Eventually, Corless managed to obtain the death records of all the 796 children who were found dead in the septic tank from the County Galway registry office. She, and a committee, is now working towards building a memorial to mark the mass grave.