Around 80 people have come forward to date to give their DNA to the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT) in advance of the full excavation of the site at the former mother and baby institution in the Galway town.
Director of the ODAIT Daniel MacSweeney said the process of recovering and identifying remains from the site – where it is believed around 800 babies and young children could be buried – will be “complex”.
Speaking at a press conference in Tuam on Monday, Mr MacSweeney said that 40 to 50 people have come forward in the last two years to give their DNA. About 30 more people have come forward in recent weeks in advance of the excavation process beginning next Monday.
To date, DNA samples have been taken from 14 people. At present, the team is only collecting DNA samples from elderly or vulnerable people.
RM Block
Mr MacSweeney said a range of relatives can give DNA from both the maternal and paternal side, including parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. He was unsure how long this DNA would be stored, but at least “for the duration of our project” which is expected to take a minimum of two years.
“Our mission statement is to restore dignity in death and, if possible, identify those who are inappropriately buried at the site ... and to rebury them with respect, with dignity, following a consultative process with the families.”
Mr MacSweeney said the process of identifying remains will be “challenging for many reasons”.
“We cannot underestimate the complexity of the task before us, the challenging nature of the site, as you will see, the age of the remains, the location of the burials,” he said.
Dr Niamh McCullagh, the forensic archeologist who directed a test excavation at the site in 2016 and 2017, said many of the remains are “commingled” – meaning “their bones are mixed up and have lost their skeletal order or association”.
A multidisciplinary approach will be taken in an effort to “reassociate” the remains and, where possible, identify individuals, she said.
“We have a suite of methods by which we can attempt to sort commingled remains into individual sets of remains. We can sort remains by age at death, and we can try to assign biological sex to skeletal legal human remains – and this assists us with individualisation and reassociation processes,” Dr McCullagh told the press conference.
She said a method developed in recent years by scientists at Durham University in the UK, which “assists in assigning biological sex through the analysis of peptides in tooth enamel”, will be used by the team.
Dr McCullagh noted that this method “is just another example of how innovative and unique our approach here in Tuam is required to be”.
The excavation will take place 11 years after research by local historian Catherine Corless revealed that 796 children died at the institution, which was run by the Bon Secours religious order between 1925-1961. A lack of burial records indicated the children could be buried on the site.
The test excavation in 2016 and 2017 discovered a significant amount of human remains in what appeared to be a decommissioned sewage chamber.
International experts from Colombia, Spain, the UK, Canada, Australia and the US have joined Irish specialists to start the forensic excavation at the site.
The ODAIT has been given a budget of €9.4 million for this year. The excavation process is due to begin on July 14th.
