News and Events

Ireland is not unique in its institutional past. It was, however, much later in addressing it and ending it. The Tuam Oral History project is a small piece of the story around this country's historical accountability for its institutional past. Read Full Article (RTE.ie)

Survivors of the Tuam mother and baby homes have criticised the destruction of testimony evidence by the state’s investigating commission but welcomed the introduction of the Tuam Oral History Project. Read Full Article (The Times)

The report of the investigation into what happened in Ireland’s mother and baby homes has been met with dismay and distrust by many survivors.   Read Full Article (Business Post - subscription required)

Opening the records goes far beyond this report and shows how survivors were silenced, writes Barry Houlihan. Read Full Article: Irish Independent (subscription required) 

The mother and baby home report underlines why we need to grapple with our country’s dark past, writes Elaine Feeney of the Tuam Oral History Project. Read Full Article (The Guardian)

A new digital exhibition of the Tuam Oral History Project has opened as researchers and survivors pave the way for consultation on a memorial that could be set within the campus of NUI Galway. Read Full Article (Irish Examiner)

NUI Galway has launched a new podcast series narrated by actor Cillian Murphy that shares the stories of Mother and Baby Home survivors. It comes as part of a new digital exhibition of the Tuam Oral History Project launched today, featuring biographies of some of the survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Read Full Article (Western People)

....... Some say the veil still hasn't lifted. Read Full Article (CNN.com)  

Tuam Mother and Baby Home survivors will tell their stories on a new RTÉ podcast, Morning Ireland Extra. Read Full Article (Irishcentral.com)

In the second edition of Morning Ireland Extra's podcast on Tuam Mother and Baby Home, we meet two survivors with vastly different perspectives on their time in Tuam. Read Full Article (RTE.ie)

Earlier this year survivors of the mother-and-baby home at Tuam, Co Galway, gathered at NUI Galway for the launch of The Tuam Oral History Project.  The initiative, separate to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission, is aimed at giving survivors and those associated with the home an opportunity to tell their personal stories.  Read Full Article (RTE.ie)

A project aimed at collecting the personal histories of people born at the Tuam mother-and-baby home was launched in Galway on Thursday. Read Full Article (Irish Times)

The testimonies of people who spent time in the mother-and-baby-home in Tuam are to be recorded and archived as part of a new initiative. Read Full Article (RTE.ie)

NUI Galway has hosted a public event with members from the Tuam Home Survivors Network and featuring a range of speakers, including historian Catherine Corless, Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley of the Department of History, NUI Galway, and Irish Examiner reporter Conall Ó Fátharta. Read Full Article (Irish Examiner) 

A fresh archive of the oral history of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home will ensure that the stories of injustice from that place are not lost to history. Read Full Article (galwaydaily.com)

The personal histories and experiences of survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home are to be gathered by researchers at NUI Galway. Read Full Article (Irish Examiner) 

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation has produced its final report detailing the experiences of women and children who lived in 14 mother and baby homes and four county homes between 1922 and 1998. The report confirms that 9,000 children died in the 18 homes under investigation, amounting to about 15% of all children who were in these institutions. But survivors have argued that the report is incomplete. Paul Redmond from the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors, who is a survivor of the home in Castlepollard, told The Last Word that those who were illegally adopted from the institutions have been "thrown under the bus". Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley, lecturer in history at NUI Galway and co-principal investigator for the Tuam Home Oral History Project, and Maree Ryan-O'Brien, founder of Aitheantas, which campaigns to give Irish adoptees access to their own birth information, also joined us with their reaction to the report. Listen here (The Last Word with Matt Cooper)

A new NUI Galway production responds to the lived experiences notably missing from the report into mother and baby homes.  Created by Dr Miriam Haughton and students from NUIG’s drama and theatre studies faculty, the 45-minute piece is part of the Tuam project. Just months after the much contested Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, Nochtaithe responds to and centralises the lived experiences notably missing from the report into the great stain of mother and baby homes. The result is a moving, maddening, creative work echoing the experiences of the women and girls.  Read more (The Irish Times)  

Institution survivor Mary Harney and Dr Maeve O’Rourke, NUI Galway and The Clann Project, react to the admission by the State that the rights of survivors of mother-and-baby homes were breached. This happened when they were not given a draft copy of the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes before it was published. Listen here (RTE Radio 1 Drivetime)

REDRESS: Ireland’s Institutions and Transitional Justice. The book explores the ways in which Ireland – North and South – treats those who suffered in Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, County Homes, industrial and reformatory schools, and Ireland’s adoption system. Maeve O’Rourke, Lecturer & Director of Human Rights Law Clinic at Irish Centre for Human Rights & Editor of REDRESS: Ireland’s Institutions and Transitional Justice speaks to Pat Kenny.  Listen here (Newstalk The Pat Kenny Show)  

Dr. Maeve O’Rourke, Lecturer at the University of Galway & co-director of the Clann Project speaks to Claire Byrne as the redress scheme opens for applications for the survivors of the Mother and Baby Institutions.  Listen here (RTE Radio 1 Today with Claire Byrne)    

The Mother-and-Baby Institutions Payment Scheme is to open on 20 March with priority being given to older applicants. After a number of delays, the first payments are expected to be made in the second quarter of the year. It comes after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's apology following the publication of the final report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes over three years ago.  Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman said the redress scheme was a key element of the Government’s action plan for survivors and former residents of Mother and Baby homes and county home institutions. Read more (RTE.ie)

Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley, a foremost in the history of childhood in Ireland, argues that our national story remains incomplete until we recognise our institutional history.  Calling for a survivor/ person-centred approach, she reflects on the importance of testimony in piecing together an understanding of Ireland's Carceral Institutions.  Read more (University of Galway Cois Coiribe Magazine)

Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley and Elaine Feeney welcome plans to teach the history, legacy and literature of Ireland’s dark past at Junior Cert level. This week The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) published three moduls addressing the history, legacy and literature of Ireland’s institutions – including the mother and baby institutions, industrial and reformatory schools and Magdalene laundries. The History module and materials will examine Ireland’s ‘Mother and Baby Homes’, and have been designed for Junior Certificate students. They will engage with Catherine Corless’s work, as well as the testimonies and life experiences of survivors and affected, including individuals from the Tuam Mother and Baby Institution.  Read more (Thejournal.ie)

Minister for Education and Youth Helen McEntee has today welcomed the publication by the NCCA of a curriculum resource to support post-primary schools in enabling students to learn about Mother and Baby homes. The resource consists of units of learning for Junior Cycle History, and for Junior Cycle Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE).  Read more (Gov.ie)

For the first time, a formal curriculum resource on Ireland’s mother and baby institutions, industrial and reformatory schools and Magdalene laundries has been published by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Joining Seán to discuss this is Sarah Anne Buckley, Associate Professor in History at the University of Galway and one of the leads of the Tuam Oral History Project, whose research has been included in the second level course.  Listen here (Newstalk with Sean Moncrieff)

Annette McKay, whose baby sister died in a Tuam mother and baby home, describes her mother's story and why she believes the excavation is "momentous". Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley, Associate Professor of History at University of Galway, discusses the significance of the excavation.  Listen here (RTE Radio 1 News at 1)

Experts are searching for the remains of hundreds of children who died at the institution run by Catholic nuns until 1961, including bodies disposed of in a disused sewage system. Read more (New York Times)

A team of forensic archaeologists and crime scene experts has begun excavations at the site of a former church-run institution in Ireland, where the remains of approximately 800 children are believed to be buried. See more (CNN Newsroom Instagram)

Last Monday, excavators began work at St. Mary's Mother-and-Baby Home in Tuam where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth from 1925 to 1961.  Experts from several countries are working together to search for and identify the remains of hundreds of babies and young children who died there.   Sarah-Anne Buckley is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of modern Irish social history. She joins Mihingarangi to discuss this unprecedented excavation project.  Listen here (rnz.co.nz)