The Kerry Babies Case

Most of that is fact, but you’ve worked in some opinion and you’re wrong on some points of detail.

There most certainly is an obligation to register deaths, since 1864. There is no obligation to register stillbirths, and there was no stillbirth register at the time. There’s no forensic evidence as to whether the Tralee baby was stillborn or died shortly after birth.

Theres also this statute, prohibiting concealment of births.

And, yes, there’s no point in pursuing those matters now. There’s also no point in assigning a significance to events that they don’t deserve.

The fact that Hayes was coerced into admitting the murder makes you lose faith in the competence of the gardai of that time. This case was the biggest reputation damage to gardai in it's history. The west Cork murder a decade later makes you question any evidence the gardai collected then as they had a narrative in that case too that they needed evidence to fit. There was another case Grace Livingston in the early 90's where the Gardai had unfound narrative but still interrogated the husband as if they had evidence he did it..... but a hunch from an experienced garda seemed to go a long way back then.

At no point did I say anything about the mother of the baby being responsible for the murder.

There was never a time in this country to any sane person where murdering a baby was preferential to being stigmatised, thats just a ridiculous thing to say and some sad attempt to justify or minimise the murder of a baby.

Headline should read Man.

Link not updated.

From The Times;

It’s possible (though unlikely) that the baby’s mother didn’t even know he was murdered… she could have been told he died shortly after birth or had been adopted. The actual killer may be dead .. or maybe not. There could be a lot of twists to this investigation.

The actions of the Gardaí at the time keep coming back into this sorry tale. Maybe there'll be another tribunal yet to ascertain truths and rule out suspicions.

There's no evidence that JH committed a crime no matter how much you add 2+2 together to come up with 5.

And don't we all know that if there was even a hint that she had actually committed a crime that she would have been hawled through the courts about it to much glee from some quarters.

Burying dead newborn babies on family land back then used to happen. Not as frequently as it had in the past admittedly but it still happened. There's nothing shocking about this unsanitised reality although it may be a bit unpalatable and hard to process for the eyes and ears of people nowadays.

The crime being investigated here is baby John's murder. Nothing else.

I'm class of 95 and girls in my year were made leave our school if they got pregnant. Also Dublin.

Was Joanne Hayes dragged on to the Late Late Show?

I was trying to find a clip on YouTube with no luck. Was curious to see if Uncle Gaybo treated her as nastily as Annie Murphy.

Maybe I dreamed the interview happened or maybe as part of the State settlement it has been removed.

Just awful to think that a group of adults (seemingly) hounded a young teenager knowing that she was totally innocent, endless interviews and a court case, I don't know how she or her family went through it and survived. It must have been a nightmare for them. There must have been cases where innocent people were locked up as scapegoats after been similarly stitched up , sickening.

Looks like the gardai have learnt nothing over the years.

It took them THIRTY FOUR YEARS to accept they were wrong and make an apology to Joanne Hayes. Even then Garda Gerry O'Carroll would still not apologise himself and still touted the theory that she could have given birth to twins that had different fathers - yes he really did come up with that theory and still held it until 2018

Now rather than question in private, they shout to the world that they have 2 people being questioned for murder and then release them 24 hours later making sure all the local know who they are.

Despicable and disgusting from an garda siochana.

And they wonder why they are so disliked?

But what has this to do with baby John who was murdered?

Joanne Hayes has been cleared of any wrong doing no matter how many times you are going to drag up her past ,a baby who was not babtised could be buried in a holy cemetary .In some parishes there was a place called a 'killeen' where these babies were buried and other instances these babies were buried in farm land.

What is done today with premature babies /stillbirths?