Children of Tuam

1925 - 1961

Her long, stringy, auburn ringlets frame her figure, a two-month-old lying on a hard bed. She is silent. No cries and no laughter, no shrieks and wails. A shallow breath escapes her cracked, blue, lips. Her ribs show through the prayer rags she has on. Her mother died during birth and she was left on the doorsteps, a token of failure. Her heartbeat pitter-patters on, rushing too fast, pounding beneath her pallid skin. It skips a beat.

Blake, Mary. 23/9/1925. 3 1/2 months. Anemic since birth.

Fresh cries echo around the room, a baby wailing loudly. He can't even crawl yet. Life blooms from the breaths he takes and the blank white walls crowded with mould recede from him; a stark contrast between his shivering limbs flushed with pink and the brittle atmosphere. He was found in someplace, somewhere, sometime, birthed by someone. The cries pleading for attention shrivel into whimpers. Anonymity cradles him.

Murray, James. 4/11/1925. 4 weeks old. Child apparently well a couple of hours before death. Current inquest.

Look at her. Skin on bones, they said. No hope, they said. We should have never taken her in. Yet she clings fiercely, desperately, to the little hope left in the room. A year. A year old. Her mother is in America, the land of the free where they whisper blackened words of toil. The home of the brave, where her father cowered under a judge's gavel. The air around her is nervous, as if one small breeze could blow her away from this world.

Gagen, Margaret Mary. 10/05/1930. 1 year. Debility from birth. Certified.

A 10-year-old stands alone on the grounds, tattered white nightgown swaying in the breeze. The others had all been taken, taken as silently from their home as they came. Do-gooders turned up on their doorstep, walking daintily among the huddled filth and picking and choosing. Picking and choosing like livestock, like they were animals to be bred. America had opened up its gates, turned a blind eye to the shiploads of stinking children arriving unnoticed on its harbours. Death would breathe sweet release to the ones willing. Her bare feet dance across the coarseness of the grass, stumbling as the feeling of a dry hack wells up in her throat. She leans against the rusted iron gate for support.

Donohue, Margaret. 10/10/1933. 10 1/2 year. Pertussis 1 month. Certified.

His brain is not sure yet. 3 nuns have come up to him this morning, eyes sweeping over someone in limbo. They are not sure yet, taking their tea and hurrying to the next child. Time slows to a crawl around him, suspending his body and soul in coma. Pale green eyes, sallow and sunken, stare accusingly through the ceiling and through the clouds. 2 weeks old and his arms still jerk. 2 weeks old and his legs still flail. How long will he be able to say that for? The chalkboard sky presses unrelentingly on the window. Wisps of straight gold sit on his head like a crown, crowning a king unfit for today.

Monaghan, Henry. 14/05/1937. 3 weeks. Epilepsy from birth. Coma two days. Certified.

1970's

"I reckon it shouldn't be allowed, stuff like that."

"Mmm-hmm." his friend sucked on a hard candy. His name was Barry Sweeney, and he was the younger of the two boys. Frannie Hopkins - 9 - kicked a stone, trailing aimlessly down the street.

"They can't stop us from goin' places. I'm nearly 10, you know," he said.

"Mmm-hmm."

"Barry?" he paused, mischief glinting in his eyes.

"Mm-yes?"

"I hear," he started. "I hear that they've got ghosts down there." Barry stopped in the middle of the street, imagination going. This was an idea worth pursuing down a Sunday afternoon. Frannie continued. "I hear that the old home - that they've got dead people in 'em!"

"Really?"

"I was thinking." He timed his words carefully. "I was thinking that we could go down there, just for a bit, mind you, and go and see. Things, I mean," Frannie finished excitedly. Barry was a simpler mind. He chewed contemplatively and decided it was raspberry flavoured. The two boys set off at a lazy, meandering pace, with the old home as a destination vaguely in mind.

The concrete slab echoed dully across the small clearing, tangled underbrush muffling the thud of feet hitting the ground. The area had been overgrown with vines and weeds choking the land long ago.

"Did you hear that?"

"I 'fink so. Mmm-hmm." Upon these words Frannie crawled over to the edge in delight, knocking at the cover.

"It's empty! Come on. Help me get it aside," he motioned. Barry wandered over and made a half-hearted effort to drag the weighty cover. Triumphant, they peered over the edge into a shallow concrete abyss caulked one too many times.

A little gasp, and then a scream and a sudden blur of movement. Barry's face twisted into one of horrified intrigue.

"Bones."

They ran off whooping and hollering, craftsmen honing real tall tales from truth.

December 2012

Maps and diagrams and Excel charts were scattered aimlessly across the kitchen countertop. Catherine's head was resting on a cup of tea, thinking and sleeping and somehow doing both at the same time. The window had fogged up early in the morning, and cold air crept in at the edges. The dust had settled in her mind, and somehow, somehow something seemed to have sprung up. She was wearing a faded navy jacket with cottony parts washed out, and the lines on her face wasn't etched so much as scribbled faintly. Sewer. Bones. Children. Children. Them poor children. A great spurt of clarity knocked the mug over, and she stood up on the shattered ceramic. Oh my god. Oh my god. The children. She stood there, rocking back and forth at 11 o'clock in the morning. She reached for her keys, hands numbly finding the right one. Her blank stare burned into the wall and froze in time. No one cared. No one cared enough.

40 years later, an amateur historian name Catherine Corless is pushed to ask the questions no one else will and discovers a horrifying truth about the Bon Secours Sisters Home: 796 children and infants were buried in an old septic tank among sewage. The reason for the death and the hush-hush affair of everything was attributed to the fact that this home cared for illegitimate children, a stigma still present there today. Lots knew; nobody wanted to out the truth. The death rate for these children was 4 times that of normal ones, and the severe malnourishment at the centre only added to the problem. Some were even carted to the US for cheap labour. The home operated from 1926 up to 1961. 2 children had wandered upon the remains in the earlier 1970's, but people attributed their findings to famine victims. Later, a home and a playground were built directly on top after the old home was torn down.