Chrissie, 91, hopes to bring closure to baby Michael's death in Tuam Mother and Baby Home
Chrissie Tully, aged 91, from Loughrea, Co Galway. She never saw her baby’s face or held him in her arms and was never told where he was laid to rest.
Picture: Hany Marzouk
Before she goes to sleep every night, Chrissie Tully says a decade of the rosary for her son Michael who died 74 years ago.
She first began the ritual in 1949 after her newborn died during an 'agonising' childbirth.
Now 91, Chrissie recalls how she never saw her baby’s face or held him in her arms and was never told where he was laid to rest.
Like many of the now-elderly former residents of the Tuam mother and baby home, Chrissie hoped the promised excavation of the site would allow her to discover her son's final resting place and give her closure.
Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman who appointed Corkman Daniel MacSweeney to oversee the excavation said it will be “one of the most complex forensic excavation and recovery efforts” undertaken “anywhere in the world.”
On Thursday, Mr McSweeney told the he will do his best to find the 796 missing children and to identify them.
He also said their families will be included throughout the entire process.
It was the first time, the Tuam babies’ family members said they have “ever felt recognised” since the discovery of their relatives’ mass grave in 2014.
Chrissie said that the “honesty” Mr MacSweeney has shown in his interview with the has given her “some hope.”
“If he can do his best to find my son Michael after I’m gone, his brother will lay him to rest,” she said.
“I’ll be able to rest in peace knowing he tried, and I do believe from what he said, that he is going to try his hardest, I can hear that. That man can’t do any more than that but the bit I’ve read, I think he’s a good public servant."
The exhumation, while in the early stages of being established, could take years to begin.
However, the Tully family all fear the glacial place of the process which came to light in 2014, is too little and too late for her to get answers about her baby while she is alive.
Chrissie was just 18 when the nuns in the Tuam mother and baby home rushed her to the former Galway Central hospital, after she became distressed during labour.
On December 13 1949, given her tiny size and weight of just 84lbs, the nuns took her to hospital for urgent medical attention.
Doctors discovered baby Michael, who weighed 7.5lb, was breech and Chrissie was forced to deliver him naturally, without pain relief.
“I didn’t know what was happening,” said Chrissie.
“I was in agony; the pain is not something I have forgotten. Then this doctor said, ‘your son is dead’ and they took him away and left me there in the bed.
"I wasn’t given any hospital procedures for when a baby dies, I was just sent away again.”
The trauma of losing her son has never left her.
“I would have liked to have buried him myself,” she said. “I would have kept him too had he lived. I was a good worker; I was a domestic all my life. But he was just taken and gone and that was it.”
Her family sent her to the controversial institution, after 'shaming' them with a pregnancy outside of marriage.
“My mother wouldn’t even post me something in case someone in the post office saw the address on the parcel,” Chrissie said.
All alone and frightened, she went to live with the Bons Secours nuns, who ran the Tuam home.
There she earned her keep in secret, “scrubbing and cleaning” for more than six months while carrying her first child.
Unknown to many of the residents then, the children who died there, were usually buried in a large plot on the grounds of the institutions.
However, nothing prepared the world for the news in 2014 that 796 children were buried in a cesspit there between 1925 and 1961 – where they still lie today.
Test excavations in October 2016 carried out by a Commission of Inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes (set up to examine the shameful treatment of unmarried mothers and their babies in Ireland) confirmed there was a “significant quantity of human remains” from 35 foetal weeks to two to three years buried in Tuam.
Some samples of those remains were tested in a laboratory in Dublin which confirmed they were from the Tuam home.
After the news of the children’s deaths emerged, Chrissie decided to look for Michael.
At the time of Michael's death, still-born babies were not registered in the official birth’s deaths and marriages register but that changed in the 1990s.
Babies who died in the Galway Central Hospital were usually laid to rest at the nearby Bothermore cemetery.
However, in correspondence to Chrissie on April 21, 2019, the Environment Section of Galway City Council said, “Unfortunately, I could not find Baby Tully. I’m not sure where you should start looking now. Perhaps get in touch with the hospital to see what records they hold, who they released the baby to, etc. My hope is that you do find him. Sorry, I couldn’t be of more help.”
Desperate to know the truth, Chrissie asked the HSE if her son’s remains were experimented on in a laboratory – which did happen to some of the children around that time.
But a spokesperson told her that “unfortunately, they hold no records for this period.”
There is, however, one maternity record received under the Freedom of Information Act that states Michael died from a “difficult breech delivery.”
At the end of the document, it said “discharge to Tuam home.”
Chrissie said this document poses more questions than answers.
“I know I had to go back to Tuam, so did Michael come with me and is he is buried with those children in that hole?” she asked.
Five years after Michael’s death, Chrissie who went back to her life in Loughrea, fell pregnant again by the same father as her first son.
This time, gardaí came to her house and brought her to the barracks.
“There was this retired judge, he said to me ‘if you don’t tell us who the father of these babies is, we’ll put you in jail.’ I knew he meant business and I said to him ‘go on so, ‘cos I’m saying nothing’ and that was that’.
“I went back to Tuam and had my son Christopher.
“Christopher was taken and adopted. I wasn’t allowed to ask questions.”
The loss of her two boys was the reason Chrissie said she never got married or had other children. While she has a feisty streak, she confesses, “I have lived with a broken heart since I was 18, but you just have to keep going”.
Good news did come for Chrissie, around 10 years ago. Out of the blue, a social worker said her son, who survived Tuam and was later adopted as Patrick Naughton, was looking for her.
“We met with the social worker,” said Chrissie.
“But he waited for me in the carpark and after she was gone, we didn’t bother with her again.”
Patrick has supported his mother as they attempt to find his brother.
It comes after a long hard battle by the families of the children and survivors of Tuam, to have the burial site opened to help find and identify the missing children whose names were uncovered by Catherine Corless in 2014.
The Institutional Burial Act 2022 followed which gave the Government a lawful basis to undertake a full-scale forensic excavation, recovery and analysis of the children’s remains.
The cost of the exhumation will be about €12m and the Bons Secours nuns have contributed €2m.
Daniel MacSweeney told the there is no date confirmed for the exhumation, but he will follow a process that is used by the Red Cross and UN all over the world.
As they edge closer to the start of a process that could take years, Chrissie said, “I never close an eye without saying the rosary for Michael.”
Chrissie has received much support from the Tuam Babies Family Group, which was set up by Anna Corrigan, whose two brothers are believed to have died in Tuam.
She questioned why any law was needed to open a children’s mass grave when the land is state-owned.
Anna found out about the grave when researching her parents’ lives. She discovered her mother Bridget Dolan gave birth to two boys in Tuam.
John Desmond Dolan was born weighing 8lb 9oz on February 22, 1946, but died June 11, 1947, with “congenital idiot and measles” listed as his cause of death.
Bridget had a second child in 1950, she was in the Tuam home but later rushed to Galway University Hospital during labour.
William Dolan is registered by the nuns as having died on February 3, 1951, with no death certificate.
“Is he dead or is he alive?” asked Anna. “How can you mark a child as being dead but have nothing in the official registry?”
Reacting to Daniel MacSweeney’s opening remarks, Anna said she was “disappointed" that he does not believe it will be possible to find all the missing children.
"Why does he believe that and what is putting this doubt in his mind? It is very confusing given that the excavation or the retrieval has not started yet," she said.
“I was sent a letter by the Bon Secours in April 2013 stating that 'his remains (my brother John) were buried at the small cemetery at the home. So why would all the other children not be buried there too and why will we not be able to find all the missing children. Has somebody not got something right?"
She said she has no doubts over his sincerity and, indeed, the scale of the task at hand but said she is hopeful of a more positive outcome than he has indicated to date.
Annette McKay whose sister Mary Margaret O’Connor died in the Tuam home said she has spoken with to Mr MacSweeney recently.
She told the : “I was heartened by his realism. It’s not going to be easy, and it is multilayered. We must start this exhumation and his strands of research, DNA testing and working with the families will help to ensure that the process will be transparent and cohesive. We have not had that from anyone up until now.”
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