There were no burial records and the deaths were ignored until a decade ago when Catherine Corless, a local historian, uncovered death certificates for 796 infants. This led to a judicial commission, a state apology and a promise to excavate the site. View image in fullscreen The former mother and baby institution was demolished in 1961 and its site is now a housing estate. The operation aims to recover all the human remains, attempt to identify them, return them to their families and rebury them with dignity. The team has offices and a laboratory on site that can do preliminary analysis before sending material to a bigger lab.