Unpacking claims 796 children were buried in a 'mother-and-baby home' septic tank in Ireland

In June 2025, a years-old rumor resurfaced, alleging that 796 babies had been buried in the septic tank of what was known as a mother-and-baby home in Ireland. These were homes run by Catholic nuns that housed pregnant and often unwed women and girls in the 20th century (the final such home shut down in the late 1990s). The babies were often separated from their mothers and given up for adoption.

For example, one account on X posted the claim on June 17, 2025, adding that the infants had been "dumped in a cesspool known as 'the pit'" (archived):

As of this writing, the post had gained around 1 million views and 5,200 likes. Other X accounts also shared the rumor as Snopes readers both emailed and searched the site seeking details on the claim.

Snopes found the investigation into this specific mother-and-baby home was still ongoing, and an excavation set to begin in July 2025 will seek to determine how many children were buried in what the authorities have identified as a decommissioned sewage tank. The authorities cordoned off the site for preparatory work on June 16, 2025, according to a report in The Guardian.

The rumor stemmed from research first published in 2012 by an amateur historian local to the home in question, which is in the town of Tuam, County Galway, in Ireland. It reemerged in mid-2025 as authorities prepared to excavate the grounds of the home to identify how many infants were buried in the unmarked mass grave. 

The controversy began in 1975 when two local boys who were playing near the building of the former home happened to peer beneath a concrete slab and found the tank below was "full" of "tiny skeletons," one of the boys, Francis Hopkins, told the Belfast Telegraph in 2014. "At the time we found a concrete slab over what I described at the time as a tank, I now see it was a tomb," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "We removed the lid and we found that it was full of skeletons; they appeared to be that of children. They were tiny skeletons, there just seemed to be an awful lot for one small little grave."

Later, he told the Belfast Telegraph in the same article, he and his friend were told by their parents that a priest had blessed the site and that the slab had been put back in place. 

Decades later, a woman named Catherine Corless took an interest in local history and began to search for records of the mother-and-baby home run by the Catholic sisters of the Order of Bon Secours, which opened in 1925 and closed in 1961. The home went by different names over the years; for convenience, Irish authorities and media often refer to it simply as "Tuam."

In a local history journal, Corless published a paper in 2012 recounting that her research had led her to believe nearly 800 infants had been buried in unmarked graves in what she believed to be a "sewage tank" in the middle of a graveyard near the house, based on an "Ordnance Survey map for 1905 of Tuam which shows the layout of the workhouse, before it became known as the Home." Comparing it with a 2007 map, she concluded the tank was still in place.

Corless said in 2013 she had tried to find burial records for 798 of the dead children she had counted, and she was unable to find records for 796 of them, according to a BBC report. She said she suspected they had been buried in the tank.

In response, the Irish government launched a commission of investigation into mother-and-baby homes, including in Tuam. The government then published interim reports and a final report in 2021.

The commission announced in March 2017 it had completed a "test excavation" that had revealed remains of children were buried under the concrete slab. The annoucement read:

The stratigraphic survey which was conducted in October 2015 identified a particular area of interest and identified a number of sub surface anomalies that were considered worthy of further investigation. These were further investigated by a test excavation in November/December 2016 and in January/February 2017. Test trenches were dug revealing two large structures. One structure appears to be a large sewage containment system or septic tank that had been decommissioned and filled with rubble and debris and then covered with top soil. The second structure is a long structure which is divided into 20 chambers. The Commission has not yet determined what the purpose of this structure was but it appears to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water. The Commission has also not yet determined if it was ever used for this purpose.

[...]

In this second structure, significant quantities of human remains have been discovered in at least 17 of the 20 underground chambers which were examined. A small number of remains were recovered for the purpose of analysis. These remains involved a number of individuals with age-at-death ranges from approximately 35 foetal weeks to 2-3 years. Radiocarbon dating of the samples recovered suggest that the remains date from the timeframe relevant to the operation of the Mother and Baby Home (the Mother and Baby Home operated from 1925 to 1961; a number of the samples are likely to date from the 1950s). Further scientific tests are being conducted.

The commission of investigation said it was "shocked" by this discovery, but the total number of children whose remains were buried in this structure was still uncertain. It further addressed Tuam in depth in the fifth interim report in 2019. It also expounded on the matter in the final report, in a chapter dedicated to the Tuam home. There, the commission confirmed that the structure that contained the remains was not technically a sewage tank at the time the remains were deposited, although the purpose of the structure was unclear: 

• The human remains found by the Commission are not in a sewage tank but in a second structure with 20 chambers which was built within the decommissioned large sewage tank. 
• The precise purpose of the chamber structure has not been established but it is likely to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water. It has not been established if it was ever used for this purpose although soil analysis illustrates that it is likely it was so used for an unspecified duration. The Commission does not consider that any of its features suggest that it was 10 deliberately formed as a crypt or formal burial chamber. If that were the case, an entirely different type of structure would have been expected that would allow for easy human access.

The fifth interim report further added it was not yet known how many were buried in the tank or elsewhere on the home's grounds:

• It has not been established that all the children who died in the Tuam Children's Home are buried in this chamber structure. There is some evidence that there may be burials in other parts of what were the grounds of the Home.

However, the final report established that the commission had found a total of 978 children from the Tuam home had indeed died during its existence, including some in a secondary house known as Glenamaddy and others at the Central Hospital in Galway: 

The Commission has identified 978 deaths of children who were in the Tuam home; this includes 80 children who died in Glenamaddy; 802 children died in the Tuam home; 80 died in the Central Hospital in Galway and 8 died elsewhere including other hospitals.

The commission further added that all but 108 of these children had been born to unwed mothers and that 80% of them were under the age of 1 when they died. In the 1940s, while World War II raged in Europe, the home saw a hike in occupancy, including by wed mothers, as their husbands left for the military. The causes of death included various bacterial and viral infections, though a large number of the children — 177 of them — died of unspecified causes, according to statistics compiled by the commission of investigation. 

In sum, it is still unknown how many children were buried in the tank. This will be determined by the excavation that will begin in July 2025. Further, the tank in which the remains were found was decommissioned as a sewage tank; its exact purpose at the time the remains were deposited remains unclear.