The Kerry Babies Case

Have you ever read anything about Baby John that did not mention the Hayes family and the Tribunal?

The Tribunal found that Baby John was not Joanna Hayes' baby but the Hayes family campaigned for decades with their media friends and, once the Judge was dead and buried, won millions in compo. No surprise, they would now like to shut down the conversation and will make no further comment. But why would Boards cancel this discussion when there are so many unanswered questions?

Being an unwed mother in 1975 I and the country were glued to the news stations watching this case unfold. Cameras following the Hayes family in a very intrusive way and police, clergy and others all wanting a moment on 'the telly'. Mayhem. Mattresses dragged out and pictured. It was obvious that this was a quiet rural family being hounded. Crazy suppositions of two fathers! Joannes name on everyones lips. It was scary times when church and gardai ruled the country. The accusation being made that poor Joanna was not just the mother of one baby but two babies, impregnated by 2 men on same day, and then both murdered, was the topic of conversation and scandal everywhere. What terrible times they were.

This is the only issue on which the Hayes family could have valid grounds for complaint although, as I pointed out in post #1954, it didn't occur to any of posters attacking and smearing me . How embarrassing for Boards but I think a fair measure of the general level of public debate about this case.

It is true that the Tribunal turned into a "trial" of sorts in which the Hayes family were found "guilty" of serious misdeeds without the usual protections given to defendants and without the normal rules of evidence which exclude e.g. unduly prejudicial material. But of course, the Tribunal was not a criminal court - there were no criminal sanctions against anyone. (Some high-flying Gardai found their careers stymied but I think that was fair enough in light of their failings.)

So who asked for a Tribunal? No, who demanded it, claiming the Government was covering up for the Garda and that only a public inquiry would get to the truth of this shocking saga? The media smelled a glorious, era-defining scandal - Garda brutality and a witch-hunt against unmarried mothers had lead to a family being charged with a shocking murder which they couldn't have committed. In retrospect, it is clear that the Hayes family were uncomfortable with the clamour for a pubic inquiry but what could they say when the Late Late Show cameras were on them?

No wonder the media didn't like the Tribunal's report! The family they claimed to be defending were exposed to public humiliation. Only Magill (Vincent Browne and Gene Kerrigan) challenged the Tribunal's findings but Judge Lynch gave them their answer (a first and last in Tribunal history). Anyone in the media who claimed "Garda brutality" afterwards paid heavily for defamation.

But the national narrative changed and once the coast was clear, the State coughed up.

I don’t understand why that entire family confessed to something that didn’t happen.

From what I’ve read, the Tribunal in 1985 cleared the gardai in the case of any wrongdoing. The 2018 garda review and JH dna test confirmed no connection to baby John and JH received a formal apology from AGS and minister for justice. The Hayes family sued the state in 2019 and settled the case in 2020. Compensation was paid because JH was wrongfully arrested and charged for the murder of baby John.

None of that explains why they all confessed.

From the tribunal report it sounds like they all knew of the pregnancy and were aware of the birth on the night of 12/04. Why confess in late April to being involved with disposing a baby’s body into the sea near Dingle if they already knew from weeks earlier that Joanne’s baby was buried on the farm. Did they believe the baby found on the beach the following day was actually Joanne’s, and that some member of the family had thought better of a farm burial and decided to dispose of the baby in the early hours after the birth. Driving 80km in the middle of the night or early morning to conceal something is not implausible, its a quick trip on empty roads. OTOH, the media reported the baby had extensive injuries and was several days old when found so the timeframe didn’t add up. It’s a very strange response from an entire family.

Its for the Gardai, not the victims, to explain how false confessions came to exist.

Perhaps you could open another thread in Philosophy about the subjugation of the Irish mind by political and media interests to create an infantilized and obedient society.

At last, a pertinent question! Yes, Gerry O'Carroll was involved and he spent the rest of his life promoting the bogus "superfecundation" theory to the media because the Tribunal destroyed the reputation of every Garda involved in the botched investigation.

The complicated reporting lines within the Gardaí added to the chaos of the investigation. But it also made it most unlikely that rogue Gardai could have beaten confessions out of the Hayes family while local Gardaí, who would have to live with the consequences, stood by. The Tribunal Report devotes a separate Chapter to the issue of the Garda Command Structure which lists all the key Garda personnel. Here it is in full.

While the investigation into the death of the Cahirciveen Baby was centred

in Cahirciveen, the person in over all charge was Superintendent John P.

Sullivan of Cahirciveen. He was assisted from the 24th April, 1984, that is to

say, ten days after the finding of the Cahirciveen Baby, by Detective-Sergeant

Joseph Shelly and Detective-Garda John Harrington, who came down from

the Investigation Section of the Garda Technical Bureau in Dublin to Cahirc-

iveen on that day (64/675). Detective-Sergeant Gerard P. O'Carroll also from

the Investigation Section of the Garda Technical Bureau went to Cahirciveen

to assist in the investigation on the 26th April, 1984 (40/15 to 17).

On Sunday, the 29th April, 1984, Detective-Superintendent John Courtney

accompanied by Detective-Garda P. J. Browne, both from the Investigation

Section of the Garda Technical Bureau, travelled from Dublin to Cahirciveen.

On arrival Detective-Superintendent Courtney assumed joint control of the

investigation with Superintendent John P. Sullivan of Cahirciveen.

On the following day, Monday, the 30th April, 1984, there was a conference

held in Cahirciveen in the morning which was chaired by Detective-Sergeant

Joseph Shelly and which was attended by Detective-Superintendent Courtney

and then later on that day the investigation moved from Cahirciveen to Tralee.

A conference was held in Tralee Garda Station in the evening time of the

same day, chaired by Detective-Superintendent Courtney. Following the

conclusion of this evening conference in Tralee on the 30th April, 1984,

Superintendent John P. Sullivan of Cahirciveen dropped out of the picture

and has no responsibility for events thereafter.

Tralee is the Headquarters of the Kerry Garda District. The Officer-in-

Charge of the District had been Chief Superintendent Doyle. However, Chief

Superintendent Doyle had very shortly previously been transferred from the

Kerry District and the local Tralee Area Superintendent, namely Superintend-

ent Daniel O'Sullivan, was temporarily carrying out the duties of the Kerry

District Chief Superintendent as well as his own duties as Tralee Area

Superintendent.

A farewell function to Chief Superintendent Doyle took place in Tralee

32Garda Station on Monday evening, the 30th April, 1984, following the

conclusion of the conference there regarding the Cahirciveen Baby investi-

gation (36/316 and 317). Most of the Gardai involved in the investigation of

the death of the Cahirciveen Baby attended this function.

On Tuesday, the 1st May, 1984, in addition to the Cahirciveen Baby case,

there was also an investigation into a serious rape case proceeding in Tralee

Garda Station. A person or persons was or were being interviewed in the

Station in connection with that crime during the course of the 1st May, 1984.

Added to that, Superintendent Daniel O'Sullivan had also to go to Dingle for

a period of an hour and a half to two hours in the early evening of Tuesday, the

1st May, 1984. Consequently, the involvement of Superintendent O'Sullivan of

Tralee in the Cahirciveen Baby case was largely peripheral, making available

rooms in Tralee Garda Station to interview members of the Hayes family and

Bridie Fuller and also making available the necessary manpower to carry out

the interviews and transport.

The person really in charge of the investigation from the conference on the

evening of Monday the 30th April, 1984 in Tralee Garda Station was Detective-

Superintendent John Courtney.

The willingness of people to accept and then reject the findings of the tribunal is not that surprising and was effectively a big part of the concept of 1984, Orwell etc. You could extend it to say that in all societies public opinion overrules rational evidence based decisions. The key is who has the ability to create and shape that public opinion.

Im.not sure that theTribunal Findings were well received. There were protests at the time and my own memory is that most people believed the Gardai were trying to cover up their mishandling of the inveztigation.

The Tribunal findings were very unwelcome to the groups who had pressed most strongly for a public inquiry, especially sections of the media but the government accepted the Report and no political party rejected it although there were certainly mutterings from the back-benches.

There was no political appetite for a Dáil debate on the Report but the Minister for Justice set out the Government position in a lengthy reply to a written question from Seamus Brennan T.D. His reply is a full-throated endorsement of the Report and he expresses warm thanks to Judge Lynch while criticising some of the Report's critics. He also supports the Garda Commissioners actions against the investigating Gardaí in light of the Report's withering findings against them.https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1985-10-23/33/?highlight%5B0%5D=tribunal

The protests at the time were not large but were covered prominently in the media. The protesters focussed mainly on the treatment of Joanne Hayes at the Tribunal, especially the intrusive questioning by Counsel for the investigating Gardai who were pushing their bogus "superfecundation" theory. Most of the media grudgingly accepted the Tribunal's findings, including that there was no violence used by the Gardai and that the Hayes family had lied repeatedly to the Gardai. The only concerted attack on the Report came from Magill (Vincent Browne, Gene Kerrigan). Judge Lynch (uniquely in our history) replied in detail to defend his findings (paywalled). Magill came back with further criticisms but these didn't gain traction at that time . https://magill.ie/magazine/magill/1986-03-01

We'll have to disagree on this. I lived through that time and remember it well. Certainly nobody in the Dublin working class area I lived in believed the Garda fantasy land story nor did they think the Hayes lied to anyone. Even back then most people saw it as 100% on the Gardai - and it turns out that they were right to think that.

This is not a matter of opinion on which we might agree to disagree. There is no doubt that the Hayes family lied to the Gardai. No one in the media or in public life denies it, even though they showered millions on the family. Anyone who thinks otherwise simply knows nothing about this scandal. If everyone in that Dublin working class area believed the Hayes family did not lie to anyone, it would be a perfect example of the mass self-delusion which I say defines Irish society.

Not only did the family give the Gardai different false accounts of what happened to Joanne's baby, their lies were their undoing. As the Report found:

As a result of the patently false stories first told to the Gardai by each member of the Hayes family and Bridie Fuller, the Gardai's strong suspicions of the involvement of the Hayes family and Bridie Fuller with the CahirciveenBaby progressed into a positive and certain belief.

The Tribunal scotched the "Garda fantasy land story" about superfecundation/twins but if you mean everyone believed the Gardai extracted the Hayes confessions by violence, then it is simply another depressing instance of mass self-delusion. (Shockingly, there were cases of confessions extracted by Garda beatings around that time - the Shercock and Sallins cases being probably the worst - but that didn't happen to the Hayes family as was clear from the evidence given by the family and many others at the Tribunal).