Boulevard of Bonkers Ideas
When one massive door opens, 796 more appear.
What a surreal day. Thursday gone had marked a piece of news an entire country (and its diaspora) has been waiting to hear.
It has been announced that after 11 years since the story broke in the Daily Mail Online in June 2014 by Alison O’Reilly, that the Tuam excavation will begin on July 14th, with preparatory measures to be put in place for the dig, starting on June 16th, only next Monday - now a matter of days away.
This will be a first of its kind in Ireland’s history, and is on quite a large scale too. But, most importantly, it’s a significant milestone in the quest for answers for the families of the children and mothers who died in the institution itself.
It’s envisioned that the dig will take around 24 months to complete.
However, while many are pleased and focusing on the fact that we are finally on the quest for answers, my mind has shifted to a slightly different area. One important cornerstone of the excavation itself involves the identification of the remains through the use of DNA.
Some of this I had touched on in ‘Fadó fadó’, which you can read by clicking below.
I fear that there are some looming issues that were not considered when the Institutional Burials Act was being formulated and debated in the Dáil back in 2022. While I do not doubt the ability of Forensic Science Ireland [FSI] who are facilitating the identification of the remains, by any means — I do feel that the Act may end up harming and restricting the potential success of identifying the remains.
Some points to bear in mind with this Act:
You have to be one of the specified relationships that have been recognised in the act as an eligible relative to be able to give a DNA sample to help the identification effort. These relationships are: a parent, child, sibling, half-sibling, grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew (whether of the whole blood or the half-blood), grandniece or grandnephew of the deceased.
You have to ensure that your family members do not object to you providing a sample to the identification effort.
You have to be able to prove how you are related to the deceased, provided you are one of the aforementioned relationships.
They are not utilising any of the mainstream DNA databases that we know of and use on a daily basis like Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA etc… - they are creating their own one.
And I am worried about the impact of this legislation on the success of the Tuam exhumation. You see, as the current restrictions, I know of at least one child who won’t be identified because of the current restrictions.
She was born in early July 1941 to her mother Annie Roughneen. Annie was one of the 796 children who died in Tuam, she died on July 29th 1941 at the age of 3 weeks. Her mother, also named Annie died just over 2 weeks later after her on August 13th at the age of 42. They're recorded side by side.
I was testing a theory and had been researching Annie Sr's family history, she was part of a large family - but the size of the family in this case is irrelevant. Under the current regulations of the Act, there is no viable relationship to test DNA against to reunite her remains with her family. The allowed relationships that DNA will be taken from are [as above]: a parent, child, sibling, half-sibling, grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew (whether of the whole blood or the half-blood), grandniece or grandnephew of the deceased.
There is a slight issue with this. Annie Jr's grandparents had died in 1916 & 1928. Her mother is dead as she died two weeks after, as is the case for whoever her father was. Her aunts and uncles [born between c. 1886-1903] are dead. (Grand)niece or (grand)nephew? Forget that.
So, as it stands at the moment, no one will be able to identify Annie Jr. because of the restrictions. If they had allowed cousins, it would be possible. I discovered one of Annie's cousins died in late April of this year. However, as I had posted that on social media, a situation did occur in my mind, if Annie Sr’s nieces/nephews happen to come forward and give DNA, if Annie Sr. happens to be buried there and they can identify her, then they should be able to identify Annie Jr. with that. But then again, I thought, did they know they have a connection?
Now, I am friends with a lot of genealogists who do work in identifying John & Jane Does in the United States and the one thing I could not get out of my mind is the very possible likelihood of there being remains who aren’t identified because there was no relative who knew about them to be able to test against.
And why did I call this blog post ‘Boulevard of Bonkers Ideas’? Well, those who’ve followed me for a while will know the ideas I come up with can sometimes be a bit… unusual to say the least and there’s been plenty of my ideas which people would likely class as bonkers.
The idea I had come up with is to try and do what I can to make sure that doesn’t happen to any one of those children. My idea would be try to trace the families of those who died in Tuam and to let them know that they have a relative who died in Tuam and to illustrate to them how vital they would be in identifying the remains, that way at least the children would be identified, with no one left behind.
Although, at the same time, I could pretty much shoot the idea down myself. I’d end up needing the birth certificates for the children to get the mother’s names and try and trace the mothers back to wherever in Ireland they are from. [For Tuam, it’s predominantly Mayo & Galway, but there are a few exceptions] - which are €5 each. (which would be almost €4,000 if you’re doing the maths…)
It’s my gut telling me that since I can’t give my DNA to the identification effort (there are two babies from locales in my family tree on my Dad’s side that have surnames that feature in my family tree) that it would be my way of doing my bit, ensuring that it can happen for those who can give DNA, helping connect the relatives who might not be aware of how important they are in this, to the identification effort.
But one thing I do wish Ireland has is just a database that the public could contribute their DNA to, for operations like this — to help give these babies their identities and their dignity back. [Or even to identify the unidentified remains we have in Ireland anyway going back to 1968].
I know it’s still very early days with this yet, no shovel has hit the ground yet, but it’s just bugging me, and I don’t like how much it is bugging me. I suppose it’s the downside to being quite passionate about this subject and ensuring no one is forgotten.
You just want that to be the case for every other institution. For everybody to have dignity, an identity and justice.