Catherine Corless and Liam Neeson at the Dublin gala screening of The Lost Children of Tuam. Photograph: GEMC/GMD/Backgrid View image in fullscreen Catherine Corless and Liam Neeson at the Dublin gala screening of The Lost Children of Tuam. Photograph: GEMC/GMD/Backgrid Film ‘She never accepted no’: Liam Neeson on dogged heroine behind Tuam mass baby grave film Catherine Corless’s exposure of almost 800 infant deaths at a home led by nuns prompted Neeson to bring the story to screen
Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent Fri 25 Sep 2026 08.00 CEST Last modified on Fri 25 Sep 2026 08.01 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google Liam Neeson still remembers his shock and shame when he read a New York Times article about the mother and baby institution in Tuam, County Galway.
It was 2017 and the article chronicled the campaign by Catherine Corless , an amateur local historian, to expose abuse and neglect by Irish nuns that led to hundreds of children being buried in a mass, unmarked grave.
“I had such a visceral reaction,” Neeson told the Guardian. “I’m obviously Irish, I was raised in the Catholic church, and I had a deep sense of embarrassment and obligation for the truth to come out and for there to be some accountability.”
View image in fullscreen Liam Neeson, the producer of The Lost Children of Tuam, says he felt a deep sense of obligation to expose the truth. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty for IMDb It prompted the actor – and former altar boy – to use his heft in the film industry to become a producer for the first time. He optioned the article, visited Corless at her home and assembled a team to put the story on screen.
The result, nine years later, is The Lost Children of Tuam, a feature film that is released in Ireland this week and in the UK next month. “This was such an important story for the world to know about and to give a voice to the hundreds of babies and children that died,” said Neeson.
The release coincides with the continuing excavation of a 5,000 sq metre (53,820 sq ft) site where the Bon Secours order is believed have interred 796 infants who died at the St Mary’s mother and baby home between 1925 and 1961.
View image in fullscreen Catherine Corless at the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway, where it is believed 796 infants were buried. Photograph: Rory Carroll/The Guardian An international team of forensic archaeologists and other specialists has found skeletal remains of 99 babies and children since starting work last year – the result of Corless’s research, a judicial commission and a promise by the Irish state to seek truth and justice for survivors and relatives of those who died.
It is part of a wider reckoning of the mistreatment of women and children in state- and religious-run institutions across Ireland . Tuam, however, stands out for its macabre details – some infants were buried in a disused subterranean septic tank – and the doggedness of the woman who exposed it.
View image in fullscreen Monica Dolan, who plays Catherine Corless, in a scene from The Lost Children of Tuam. Photograph: Element Pictures In her quest for answers, Corless never accepted “no”, said Neeson. “The detective work she did to uncover this atrocity involving the relationship between the state and the church was extraordinary.”
The film, based on the New York Times article by Dan Barry , tells the story of how Corless, a former textile factory secretary with an interest in local history, began r…