{"id":82752,"date":"2023-08-28T12:59:51","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T12:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mylifestylemax.com\/?p=82752"},"modified":"2023-08-28T12:59:51","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T12:59:51","slug":"real-story-behind-magdalene-laundries-800-babies-grave-and-septic-tank-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mylifestylemax.com\/entertainment\/real-story-behind-magdalene-laundries-800-babies-grave-and-septic-tank-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Real story behind Magdalene Laundries 800 babies grave and 'septic tank' claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The release of The Woman in the Wall on the BBC, starring Ruth Wilson and Daryl McCormack, has prompted renewed interest and outrage in the Magdalene Laundries.<\/p>\n

For decades, many women and girls in Ireland were subjected to confinement in the institutions and made to work long hours of manual labour, for reasons including being deemed \u2018promiscuous\u2019 by society or being unmarried mothers.<\/p>\n

While the laundries were prevalent in Ireland, they did also exist in other countries including England, America, Sweden and Australia.<\/p>\n

In 2014, horror ensued when it was claimed that a mass grave of around 800 babies had been found, with it being alleged that bodies had been discovered in an old septic tank in County Galway, Ireland after dying in the care of nuns.<\/p>\n

However, it later emerged that the headlines at the time didn\u2019t convey the full picture of what really happened and was found on the site.<\/p>\n

That same year, the Associated Press outlined corrections that it made after publishing an initial report, explaining that a historian named Catherine Corless had been researching children who had died at an orphanage in County Galway from 1925 to 1961.<\/p>\n

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Corless was said to have found 797 death records, with only one pointing towards a child who had been buried alongside their relatives in a Catholic cemetery.<\/p>\n

The researcher therefore reportedly suspected that the other youngsters who had died had likely been placed in \u2018unmarked graves on the orphanage grounds, including in a disused septic tank\u2019, the publication stated.<\/p>\n

In Corless\u2019 research, she found that nearly 80% of the babies who died and were found in the mass grave were younger than one, while the most common causes of death were flu, measles, pneumonia, tuberculosis and whooping cough.<\/p>\n

Following the mention of the septic tank, it was claimed that some reports published at the time alleged that all of the babies\u2019 remains had been found in the tank, while it was also suggested that the babies in question had never been baptised, a claim that was later refuted.<\/p>\n

Despite the discrepancies in the news reports concerning the discovery of the babies bodies, Corless has been praised for her research in uncovering the mass grave.<\/p>\n