March to site of mass grave of babies who died at Catholic-run home in Ireland

(26 Aug 2018) Hundreds of people have marched through the town of Tuam, Ireland, reading aloud the names of an estimated 800 babies who died at a Catholic Church-run orphanage and home for unmarried mothers and were buried in a mass grave near a sewage area on the grounds.
The somber protesters read out: "Elizabeth Murphy, 4 months. Annie Tyne, 3 months. John Joseph Murphy, 10 months" and on and on.
They lit candles and placed hundreds of pairs of tiny shoes around a tiny white coffin to honour the babies.
Peter Mulryan lived at the orphanage for four years. He said that he didn't know until recent years that he had a sister, who is probably buried in the mass grave.
Mulryan and Tuam survivors are seeking an apology from the pope, as well as a decision to exhume the children's remains to give them a proper church burial.
Annette McKay, who organized Sunday's march in the town of Tuam, said that her mother was born in Galway, Ireland, and that she got pregnant we she was 17 years old.
She came to the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, where she gave birth to a girl in 1942, but the baby died after six months of whooping coughs and measles.
Her mother didn't tell her the story until she was 70 years old. She died two years ago without ever knowing the whereabouts of her dead baby girl.  
The demonstrators were hoping to draw attention to the plight of the Tuam babies as Pope Francis visited a shrine town on Sunday.
"We've got nothing to say to the Catholic Church. We wanted it to be a silent rebuke, said McKay. "'You should be here. But you're not here. But we are here."
Irish government-appointed investigators reported last year that DNA analysis of selected remains confirmed the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks to 3 years old and were buried chiefly in the 1950s. The Tuam home closed in 1961.
An amateur Irish historian, Catherine Corless, led to the discovery of the grave after she tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who had died as residents of the facility, but could find a burial record for only one child.

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