Catherine Corless could not have known where her interest in local history would lead her, as she began researching the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Galway in 2010. This event will be only available to ticket holders. Belonging By Catherine Corless Book description ONE WOMAN, THE SECRETS OF A SMALL TOWN, AND A QUEST FOR JUSTICE THAT ROCKED A NATION. The event will take place on YouTube and is in partnership with Hachette Ireland, Kenny’s Bookshop, and The Hardiman Hotel. Galway’s Cúirt International Festival of Literature will host the launch of Corless’s new book, Belonging: A Memoir of Place, Beginnings, and One Woman’s Search for Truth and Justice for the Tuam Babies, on Thursday September 23 at 7pm.Īt the age of 51, after enrolling in a local history evening course, Corless began to research the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, which she had passed on her way to school every day as a child.Īfter lengthy research, she uncovered a mass burial site for almost 800 babies located on the grounds of the home, and fought for more than a decade to seek justice and restitution for the people impacted by the actions of those in power in such exploitative institutions. It speaks to the tender love of a mother and her child to the unforgettable screams which echoed through the corridors as babies were taken against the parent’s will and to a mystery which continues to this day, as so many still search to know where, and to whom, they belong.CATHERINE CORLESS, the historian whose work brought to light the deaths and burials of hundreds of children at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, and which led to the establishment of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission, will launch a memoir this month. Part memoir, part detective story, Belonging is both a personal account – of identity, beginnings and Catherine’s search for her own mother’s lost story – and a recounting of her forensic crusade on behalf of the lost babies of Tuam. Uncovering no less than 796 missing burial records of children born there, the stark truth of their place of rest became clear: a disused sewage tank on the old home site, where two boys had once stumbled upon bones.īut who were these lost children, and what had happened to them in the care of the Bons Secours order of nuns?ĭetermined to know more, Catherine’s painstaking research led to a quest for justice that continues still as, often against fierce resistance, she brought to light a terrible truth that shocked the world, impacted the Vatican, and led to a Commission of Investigation in Ireland. ONE WOMAN, THE SECRETS OF A SMALL TOWN, AND A QUEST FOR JUSTICE THAT ROCKED A NATION.Ĭatherine Corless could not have known where her interest in local history would lead her, as she began researching the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Galway in 2010.

Belonging by catherine corless