From the recording Ballads
796
©2025 Sammy Horner
Sammy Horner bass, acoustic guitar
Tim Cotterell fiddle, mandolin, mandola, banjo
Rhys Duursma drums
Elaine O’Connor bodhran
Gang vocals Sammy Horner, Kylie Horner, KJ McEvoy, Brian Brody
An important song about the horrific discovery in 2014 of 796 bodies of infants and children found in a mass grave at St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. No burial records. No headstones. No memorials. A stain on our history for sure but all the more shocking because of the perpetrators of this act. The very people who should have been caring and working for the good of the women and children.
Lyrics
They could have been the doctors
They could have found the cure
They could have healed the country
Or the whole damned world but sure
We’ll never know what could have been
For they’re not around
For 796 of them were buried in the ground
The ones who took the innocents
How did you sleep at night
Hiding this atrocity
Whilst fighting the good fight
I suppose you really hoped
your sins would not be found
But 796 of them were buried in the ground
They could have been the Seanchaí
The story telling clan
They could have been the singers
Bringing light and life to man
We’ll never know what could have been
For they’re not around
For 796 of them were buried in the ground
They could have been our leaders
They could have brought us peace
They could have been the scientists
Or truly Godly priests
We’ll never know what could have been
For they’re not around
For 796 of them were buried in the ground