An investigation into one of the darkest chapters in Irish history has recently been completed, showing that 9,000 children died in Catholic homes – church-run institutions, and pregnant women with unmarried children left the country in 1922. And in 1998.

In one of these places alone, a convent in the city of Tuam found a mass grave containing the remains of about 800 children, almost all under the age of one. Most often, the cause of death was malnutrition or disease. The site began to be explored in 2017, and excavation began about two years later and was completed in 2020.

More than 57,000 women between the ages of 12 and 40 have been sent to these places as their children for more than 76 years, according to a report by an Irish government commission that investigated the records of 18 such homes. They were handed over for adoption. One in seven babies dies at home, with a mortality rate of about 15%.

In a speech to the country’s parliament last Tuesday (12), Tavosech (Prime Minister) Michelle Martin revealed that “decades have opened the window to the deep polygamy culture in Ireland.” “Significant failures of the state and society”.

Martin apologized to a group of people who had escaped from their homes during the session.

In addition to not having the option to take their children home, the surviving women spoke throughout the investigation about the mistreatment they experienced in the institutions and how the nuns treated them as “fraudulent”.

“At that moment I had been waiting for decades, when tens of thousands of unwed mothers like me and tens of thousands of beloved children like my Anthony were forcibly separated when Ireland revealed that we were not married at the time. Children were born,” said Philomena Lee, one of the survivors in a statement.

For many of the survivors, the report does not yet reflect the involvement of church members who encouraged families to send single mothers as children.