About a decade ago, rumors began to swirl that nuns at the home had quietly buried numerous children on the property throughout the 20th century, in an out-of-commission septic tank. Reports estimated that as many as 800 deceased children may have been dumped in the tank, prompting an investigative committee to look into the allegations and order excavations on the suspected mass burial site.
The excavations produced shocking results: a large quantity of skeletons belonging to children ranging from newborn to 3 years of age. And that was only the beginning.
In addition to discovering that the infant mortality rate at the Tuam maternity home was twice that of similar facilities at one point in time — raising questions about the living conditions for those in the home — investigators learned that many children were forced into illegal adoptions against their mothers' wills.
The Missing Childrenfeatures interviews with victims of the Tuam home’s misconduct, who were separated from their mothers as babies and sold into adoptive homes. One of those survivors is Patrick Naughton, a man born in the home in 1954 and given up for adoption. Naughton met his birth mother years later, who told him the unnerving tale of what happened.
“She burst into tears and she said, ‘I don’t know whether you’ll ever believe me. … I never ever put you up for adoption. I never gave permission for an adoption,'” Naughton recalls in an exclusive clip from the show below.
“I’d like to see the paperwork that my birth mother signed me over to my adoptive parents,” Naughton says in the show. “I want that one sheet of paper … and nobody can give it to me.”
Naughton’s brother, who also lived at the home at one point, has still not been located. His family continues to wonder what happened to him, and if he was one of the children who ended up in the mass grave.
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“The Commission’s report presents a history of our country in which many women and children were rejected, silenced and excluded; in which they were subjected to hardship; and in which their inherent human dignity was disrespected, in life and in death,” the apology read. “Our Sisters of Bon Secours were part of this sorrowful history.”
It continued, “We did not live up to our Christianity when running the Home. We failed to respect the inherent dignity of the women and children who came to the Home. We failed to offer them the compassion that they so badly needed. We were part of the system in which they suffered hardship, loneliness and terrible hurt. We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the Home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way. For all that, we are deeply sorry.”
source: people.com
