Well if they are shown to be the natural parents of 'Baby John', regardless of who killed the child, they have surely lost every possible vestige of respectability. The idea of staying quiet whilst another Kerry woman & family was hounded would be despicable.
I fully agree and most locals down there would think similar although apparently this couple do have some supporters
The local priest made a speech that people should feel empathy for the parents in this tough time. I wonder did he know who they were and this was a bit more than a random plea for empathy.
There’s close ties to the church, schools, guards etc ... so, not overly surprising
To those saying they arrested before getting DNA samples from the couple; this will merely confirm if they are the parents. Genetic genealogy was used in order to track them down in the first place, using over 400 samples from local volunteers. The couples themselves didn’t actually need to submit their samples. If, for example, a 3rd cousin was identified by a sample (based on CM amounts shared with dna of baby John), then it’s easy to work back and identify common ancestors, build trees using traditional genealogy eg census records etc, and work downwards to identify who the parents could be. This would have to be done on both parents sides. It’s a long process especially as we aren’t allowed to use public databases yet here in Ireland, but it’s absolutely the future of solving cold cases (in USA for example a dna sample from crime scene is used to identify the perpetrator).
this is how genetic genealogy works, and it’s revolutionising forensic science, but there are limitations in Ireland as to how successful it is due to no public databases (ie GEDmatch, FTDNA) being allowed to be used. Yet.
Don't see the point here really in this investigation at this point as a conviction for the murder is near impossible with collected evidence. Unless someone turns, it's going nowhere.
At the most, the DNA evidence is only going to link the deceased as a parent, it won't prove who committed the crime. The obvious and plausible defence, in the unlikely event that this comes to trial is that a now deceased person committed the murder and these parents were helpless to stop it.
I'm not familiar with the area and I didn't say it was the White Strand. I just posted the pic from the Independent.
I know it was backbar… anyway backbar…it’s not the White Strand…where baby John was found…it’s 40 miles away
Fcuking priests should butt out. 🤬
They're a big part of the reason why young women and babies died in the 80s.
The idiots who paid any attention to them were an even bigger problem.
and 70's. 60's, 50's, 40's, 30's
The hold the catholic church had over people was utterly immense. So if the church said it was sinful, you were exorcised by the community in general with that community thinking they were doing "god's work" thus thinking their behavior was for the better good and "sanctioned by god".
The harm religion does, especially fervent Catholicism, is unbelievable.
Not very fair on the priest though in fairness.
No one individual Is responsible for society in the 80s.
A priest didn't tell someone to stab a 5 day old baby to death 28 times.
The church was at fault for a lot of things but the only ones to blame for Johns murder are the person who stabbed him and those who covered it up.
It would only be an issue if he knew who killed Baby John.
So because something happened a long time ago it shouldn't be investigated?
as my post said, I have family living in Cahirsiveen, my daughter . You must have missed that bit where I said I had direct family there? I know a lot of people through her, I have made many friends. I am a very regular visitor.
If there isn't a realistic prospect of a prosecution, I don't think it's a good use of resources tbh.
Even with DNA evidence linking these people to the baby, there is practically no chance of a prosecution.
So if you had a family member murdered and it wasn't solved for the next 20 to 30 years would you be fine with the Guards just giving up on it?
Because thats what you are saying should happen here with Johns murder?
Spare me any sympathy for priests or the Catholic Church. 🤚 That is the politest way I can respond without being banned.
I was 15 in 1984 and remember what it was like, and this and the Ann Lovett case, very well. I consider the catholic church 99% responsible for the fact that there were young women so terrified and with no one and nowhere to turn to, they were attempting self-aborting in bathtubs or hiding pregnancies and giving birth in secret, in fields, or farmhouses or even in grottos, covered in shame and in some cases to die there.
The grip the catholic church had on people a lot to do with that. And that began with the parish priest. For every case that is known of, there is no doubt in my mind that there are many, many more which never came to light.
And the situation, while not as hidden, wasn't not much better in Dublin. I have one friend from Dublin my age who was in a Magdelene Laundry in the early 90s. I have another friend my age from a rural village in Sligo who was literally run out of her village at 16 years of age (despite miscarrying and nearly dying) and has never been back, and never saw either of her parents alive again. (Her baby's father, of course, still lives there).
The only comment I want to hear from any priest or representative of any church should have now is "we're deeply sorry for the fear and shame we put on women".
And I'd still wouldn't give them a minute of my time.
If said idiots kept their penises in their pants, there would have been no young women pregnant to their fathers, brothers, uncles, etc.
I would imagine that the DNA work which has been done in the area has scared the living daylights out of a good number of men.
"I would imagine that the DNA work which has been done in the area has scared the living daylights out of a good number of men."
Quote function won't work for some reason, but I'd imagine some women are scared too, plenty of married people have affairs and get pregnant.
I never asked you to give the church any sympathy, this case here is about a 5 day old baby being murdered and his body being thrown away like a bit of rubbish.
This thread is about Johns murder and no priest or church is to blame for his brutal death.
"If said idiots kept their penises in their pants,"
I would say most of said idiots have no penises! Have you been to Mass lately Mrs O'
Catholic Ireland is run by Irish Mammies.
Loueze - with all due respect it was a societal problem not a simplistic issue of the parish priest “in control” of the population.
Your right, the fathers of these children were despicable the way they just abandoned the women they go pregnant as were the parents of these women who abandoned them in their time of need.
The church were not the Nazi's you didn't risk getting killed if you ignored them and the only reason they had power is because people let them have power because they were lacking in basic decency themselves in the way they treated pregnant women .People want to pretend the church were 100% to blame for everything as it mean they don't have to see their own parents and grandparents for being complicit by being so pathetic to allow them so much power.
The media are saying they were the parents so they should be named imho, they abandoned a baby who was brutally murdered
Good, because they won't get any.
There is no place for priests preaching from any pulpit today, "to have empathy" as if they are in any kind of moral position to do so. Hypocrites.
I wonder how much "empathy" they would have had in 1984. None for the mother, that's for sure.
They should just shut up.
Named why? We are long gone from that type of justice being meeted out.
They'll be named if and when they're charged. We don't know all the circumstances yet.
I completely agree with this. I greet up in the 70s and 80s in Dublin - my family had no great admiration for the institutional church. No one batted an eyelid that we didn’t go to mass a whole lot.
My husband’s aunt got pregnant in the late 50s in the west of Ireland. She was in her 30s. It was the neighbours and the community who forced her to leave and give up twin babies, not the local priest. I heard that no one spoke to her father for a long time after. The rat who got her pregnant denied all knowledge and went on living in the area, got married etc. No condemnation of him. That’s what angers me most.
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