Tuam Secrets Buried

Almost 80 per cent of the 796 children who died in the Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam did not live to see their first birthday.

Figures provided by the General Register Office, via the Department of Social Protection, show measles, whooping cough and influenza were some of the most common causes of death among the children who passed away in the Co Galway home between 1925 and 1961.

The children who died in the home did so at an average age of about 7.7 months. Some 126 of them did not live for more than one month. Some 630 of the 796 (79.1 per cent) did not make it to their first birthday.