The Kerry Babies Case

How would adoption have worked without a birth cert? The pregnancy and birth were concealed, Baby John's murder was concealed and his body thrown in the sea.

Who knows? It’s just conjecture.

I wonder will we hear anymore about it if the DPP decides there’s not enough evidence to prosecute. Everyone in Kerry knows who the couple are now so I’d imagine they would want to clear their name if they didn’t murder Baby John. It was also such a massive story and injustice to Joanne Hayes that it can’t just be let go of either. It’s such a sad case though, whatever the circumstances were for the parents it must have been such a dark secret to keep for almost 40 years. I also have a lot of sympathy for their adult children. Imagine finding all this out, that the Kerry Baby was their biological sibling and to have your family’s darkest secrets all over the news.

Agree, but while it may have been a human reaction to protect the mother, surely at some stage they would have had their conscience stirred and said something to aid Joanne Hayes ( another young woman) who they clearly knew was being treated wrongly and completely inhumanely.

Post partum psychosis is very unlikely imo. It seems to have been a well concealed pregnancy with no medical intervention. All hospitals and doctors were asked to provide details of recent births and pregnancies and this mother ( it would appear) never came to gardais attention. I don't believe hospital/doctors would have colluded with Gardai to keep this secret. If the mother/parents intended to keep the baby medical attention would have been sought - it seems the intention was always to dispose of this baby after birth like he never existed.

I do accept though that the parents could have thought at the time that the baby was going to be given away to another family. However when a newborn baby was found murdered on a beach in Kerry these parents would have had to realise there was a high chance that was their baby.

It's possible but I still think it's unlikely. In your scenario this mother went through a concealed pregnancy, gave birth with no medical help, then had a mental episode and killed her baby violently. She then just got on with normal life, married her partner and had more babies. I don't think this scenario could have played out without this couple having serious issues - both of them. Would her partner not have been petrified to have more children with her, would she not have been afraid of having another baby herself?

To me the murder of baby John was no accident - it was very deliberate and I don't think the mother was responsible.

Why didnt whoever is responsible for the death of baby John bury him on their land where he would never have been found ?

I wondered the same. Maybe the thoughts of the corpse buried in the garden was going to be too much of a daily reminder.

They probably thought throwing it in the sea would wash the problem away.

Ironically it washed up and became an issue for an entirely different family.