The first mass forensic exhumation has begun at the site of a former Irish Catholic mother and baby institution, where it's believed the bodies of almost 800 babies and children are buried in a disused sewage tank. 

The former site of St Mary's Mother and Baby Home, in the town of Tuam, County Galway, was boarded up on Monday as forensic teams began the excavation process, expected to take around two years. 

The former institution, which operated between 1925 and 1961, was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns, as a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children. 

The building was demolished after it closed and the site, including a memorial garden for the dead, is now situated in the middle of a housing estate.

In 2014, local historian Catherine Corless, who had been researching the home, discovered that 796 babies and children who died at the institution had been buried in a disused subterranean septic tank on the grounds.

The findings sent shockwaves across the Republic of Ireland and globally, but it was not for another decade that plans for the site's excavation were announced, despite years of campaigning by survivors and their families.

Annette McKay, who lives in Greater Manchester, believes her sister Mary Margaret O’Connor is one of the babies buried on the Co Galway site.

Source: ITV