'We are lost for words': Tuam survivor raises money to buy home in case missing son returns

Chrissie Tully: 'To think people really cared so much for my poor mother Chrissie, the story has really touched people’s lives,' her son Patrick said. Picture: Hany Marzouk

A 94-year-old survivor of the Tuam mother and baby home will be able to buy her Galway council home to leave to her son after her story made international headlines, helping to raise €70,000.

Last month, Christine “Chrissie” Tully from Loughrea, Co Galway, told the Irish Examiner she lived in fear she would die without ever meeting her missing son Michael.

The infant was immediately taken from Chrissie after she gave birth. She was told he had died, but she never got to see his grave and fears he may have been adopted to the US.

Chrissie, who never married and lives alone in her two-bedroomed council house said: “What if I die and he is alive and comes looking for me? I will have nothing for him."

In a desperate bid to leave Michael her home, she launched a GoFundMe campaign with the hope of raising €50,000 — the valuation of the property given to her by Galway County Council.

Her story, was picked up by the New York Times earlier this week, and since then almost €70,000 has been raised.

Chrissie Tully with her son Patrick Naughton.

Her second son Patrick Naughton, who lives in the UK with his family and was reunited with his mother a decade ago following his forced adoption, said his mother was “shocked to the core”.

“She can’t believe it” he said. “Chrissie is in utter shock. To think people really cared so much for my poor mother Chrissie, the story has really touched people’s lives".

One very kind and generous woman from California got in touch and donated €50,000 — she told me she had read Chrissie’s story and that she had no family herself and that this was a good cause. 

"It is just unbelievable. We are lost for words. This is a woman who had two babies taken off her and had no support.

“Chrissie is getting older now and lives in fear that Michael could be alive, we just don’t know. If he ever did come back and is alive, the house in Loughrea will be there for him with all my mother’s simple possessions”.

The donations have come just a month before the exhumation of the Tuam babies mass grave is due to begin.

Up to 796 children from the former mother and baby home died during its operation from 1925 to 1961 and are believed to be buried in a septic tank.

Patrick said his mother lives with two gut wrenching dilemmas: “Michael is either in that awful pit with hundreds of others, or he was forcibly adopted like others. Imagine living your whole life carrying that burden.”