RedHanded - Episode 236 - The Kerry Babies

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

On the 14th of April 1984, the body of a baby boy was found on Cahersiveen Beach, County Kerry in Ireland. The baby had been stabbed 28 times and its neck was broken. The Garda quickly found a suspect; Joanne Hayes. And soon, this police investigation became a medieval witch hunt and a dissection of motherhood itself. May 27th London Live Show Tickets: Tickets through DICE! Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact Sources: The Kerry Babies Case: A Woman to Blame - by Nell McKafferty Gardaí apologise to woman at centre of Kerry babies case (irishtimes.com) Kerry Babies: Tribunal report was controversial, divisive, and raised more questions than answers (irishexaminer.com) Wayback Machine (archive.org) A cruel new take on Kerry babies - Independent.ie Fresh hope for solving thirty year old mystery of Kerry Babies - EVOKE.ie (archive.org) Kerry Babies: gardaí start house-to-house enquiries on Valentia (irishtimes.com) Remains of baby found dead on beach in 1984 exhumed (rte.ie) Give me a crash course in . . . the Kerry babies case development (irishtimes.com) Kerry babies: ‘Suffering of ordeal finally behind us’ – Joanne Hayes (irishtimes.com) Kerry babies case re-examined in new episode of RTÉ documentary series (irishexaminer.com) Kerry Babies: Remains exhumed in 1984 baby death investigation - BBC News Kerry Babies: Remains exhumed in 1984 baby death investigation - BBC News Kerry Babies: How the discovery of a baby's body on a beach 34 years ago sparked a traumatic series of events that shocked Ireland - Independent.ie https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/world/europe/magdalene-laundry-reunion-ireland.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4352372/Haunting-images-everyday-life-Magdalene-Laundries.html https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/irelands-last-magdalene-laundry https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/the-last-of-the-magdalenes-the-nuns-took-my-childhood-1.3515146 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2018/dec/11/one-set-twins-two-fathers-how-common-is-superfecundation https://www.babycenter.com/pregnancy/your-baby/strange-but-true-twins-can-have-different-fathers_10364945 https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20466038.html See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. Before we proceed, if you're feeling like, hey, you know what I haven't listened to in a while? Stuff about cults. You can bop on over to Spotify for our Spotify exclusive show, which is called Sinister Societies, and it just so happens to be a podcast original from Spotify. So go and find that on the Spotifys and go and listen to us talk about all sorts of cults and bad people, some good people, a lot of Hindus. They're all up in that cult business. They fucking love it.

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I knew I was going to say it wrong. To various other denominations of cults the world over. Quite. Quite. So go and do that. And if you haven't got tickets for our live show on the 27th of May at Islington Assembly Hall for the podcast show I'm disappointed in you. I mean who are you? I'm going to have to write a letter home to your parents.

See me after class. Yes. Switch this off. But don't be because we need you to keep listening. Exactly. But also go buy tickets to the show at Islington Assembly Hall on the... 27th of May, I think. That sounds right. That sounds about right. It's a Friday night.

It's a Friday night, baby. And we're on at like 7.30. It'll be great. You've got loads of time to get pissed after work. And come watch us talk about some urban legends. Yeah. And we'll be pissed already. So don't worry about it.

Exactly. We'll be matching. So do all of those things, and let's do some talking about murder, shall we? Yes. Well, so St. Patrick's Day, he does approach, despite St. Patrick, of course, not being Irish at all. Plot twist? What the fuck? So you know how St. George is actually Turkish?

You're blowing my mind. So St. Patrick... Is St. David's Japanese? What am I going to find out next? I think St. David might be the only one who is actually where he said he's from. Unfortunately, in classic style, St. Patrick's English. Ah. Ah.

And yeah, so he drove the snakes from Ireland. There are quite a lot of people who think that Ireland was better off pagan and that he should have left the snakes alone. But St George, absolutely a Turk. Ah. Well, there you go. So, again. Who knew?

Well, now all of us. Good. So St Patrick, in his English Englishness, it's his Saint's Day coming up and we wanted to do an Irish case for St Patrick's Day, which may have seemed like an odd choice, specifically because this happens to be about dead babies. But life then happens. So it's the week before St Patrick's Day, if you're listening to this on the day of release.

And please, we have the best intentions at heart. We just didn't quite manage it. So let's all just think about this as a pre-Patrick party with some dead babies. Yeah, we were sat trying to find a really, like, good Irish case to cover, one that we could really talk a lot about, find enough things to comment on, and we couldn't get away from this one. No, we really could not. If you're Irish, you'll probably already know, all of my Irish friends who I rang up for pronunciation guides were like, oh my god, I know which one you're doing. So the Kerry babies, the story of them and those caught up in the story, led to one of the most

divisive tribunals in modern Irish history. This tribunal was supposed to be about police mistreatment. It ended up being about whether women really can give birth standing up and the dimensions of vaginas in labour. As inconceivable as it may seem, two babies that died within a few days of each other, 50 miles apart, would lead to womanhood itself being put on trial in the 1980s in Ireland. So let's tell the story. In Ireland, people from Kerry, Ireland's most scenic county, tend to live a long time.

And there's even a saying about it, which is there are two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Kerry. It is very beautiful. If I was a fairy, I would live in Kerry. Is it where Kerry gold butter comes from? Yes. Delicious. It's very like if you're driving your kids to school, you have to stop for the cows to cross the road. Lots of like grottos, rock pools, that sort of thing. Also, thing also rains a lot you can see evidence of this long living stress-free life it's like my um my friend's brother this is just an anecdote about how your surroundings can change your physical health my friend's brother was living in johannesburg in south africa and his doctor was like look you really seriously need to do something about your

blood pressure and myself was like yeah fucking like i'm overweight whatever like i'm just gonna have high blood pressure and then he moved to Cape Town changed absolutely nothing about his lifestyle and now his blood pressure is completely normal so it makes a difference and the evidence of the serene life that one can have in Kerry can be seen in the county's graveyards. Cahersyvín which I have a voice note of how we are supposed to pronounce this from my friend Grace. Okay, so, all together now, repeat after me. Cahir syvean. Cahir syvean? Actually, of all the Irish words,

it's one that is kind of pronounced like it's spelt. It's not. Which is quite unusual. Now, you're going to have to say it back to me so I can see if I approve or not. So, Cahir syvean is how we're saying it. But Grace did send me a very panicked message yesterday saying, oh my God, have you recorded it yet?

And I was like, no, what's wrong? She was like, well, my boyfriend says it differently. But then she texted me again this morning being like, don't worry, false alarm. I spoke to my boyfriend's dad and he says he's an idiot and it's said how I say it. Great. Confirmation. So come for Grace, don't come for us. Excellent. So there is one graveyard in Casavin Which is called the Holy Cross Cemetery

And there's one tombstone in that there cemetery that stands out A little plastic mock marble cross stands lonely The inscription reads In loving memory of me, the Kerry baby But it hasn't always had the same message This grave marks the final resting place of a baby Who was found dead with a broken neck and 28 stab wounds. Four of those stab wounds were to the heart. Fucking hell. Yeah, sorry.

But it happened. It did happen. And we can't. No, I mean, it happened. Guild the lily for you. No, we can't. I think the inscription, in loving memory of me, the Kerry baby, that just makes me feel really sad. Yeah, the first ones was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all bad. And also just like,

how are you stabbing a baby 28 times? Where's the space? Someone who's very desperate, I think. Yep. So this burial site has sustained years of vandalism. It's been desecrated multiple times over the years. Initially, it had the following epitaph before it was changed to, in loving memory of me, the Kerry baby. It said, I am the Kerry baby, baptized on 14-4-1984, named John, I forgive. Well, that's chilling. Yep. So the Kerry baby, or John, whatever you feel is most appropriate, was found on the day

marked as his baptism on White Strand Beach outside Cahas-Sivin. And fun fact, before we get to the really grisly bit, and you might be raising your eyebrows at me since I just told you about a baby that was stabbed 28 times, but in 1850, White Strand at Cahaysivín was the location of the very first transatlantic telegraph cable, a link between the old world and the new. But, as we will go on to find out, there is very little new world ideology about this

particular story isn't that cool you find quite a lot of that on the west coast of Ireland there's a lot of stuff to do with the titanic a lot of stuff to do with transatlantic communication because it is obviously the last piece of land before the new world but because it's so fucking far away no one thinks about it yeah I would never think about it like that. The Kerry baby was found by an early morning jogger. It's been a while since we've... You know what? ...talked about the jogging. Sometimes they come through.

Look, and I would say somewhat trepidatiously, you and I have been on an understated health journey. Yes, I was jogging butt the other day. Oh, were you? Yes. Going to go off to work. My knee is so fucked, I don't, I was jogging but the other day. Were you? Yes, I'm going to go off to work. My knee is so fucked, I don't think I can jog. But what I, I'm a walker. Yes. I'm a walker. And I did walk to work today in clement weather. Should we take a turn around the room?

It's like you're kite flying on the tube. That all i ever hear when i'm on the like at a train station in this country due to today's inclement weather please don't slip and fall on the railway tracks due to today's inclement weather go the fuck home because we are on strike i'm walking all the way to work yeah no i'm gonna run going to run in tomorrow, I think. Look at us. Well, it's only three kilometres. It's not far. I mean, still. It's better than what we were doing, which is almost...

Lying down. Almost just being horizontal the entire time. Yes, quite. So maybe that's why we haven't so far this year talked about the early morning jogger and the perils of being one. Quite. And in a particularly Irish twist,

this early morning jogger also happened to be a farmer and he was going to go and look at his cows. So he morning jogger also happened to be a farmer and he was going to go and look at his cows. So he's jogging to work to be a farmer. Essentially, yeah. Love it. Do you not get enough

like cardio shit being a farmer? Why are you jogging to work? I mean, maybe he was trading for a marathon. Nobody knows. Possibly.

And also, this is completely unrelated. Obviously, Russia is in Ukraine, invading Ukraine. It's happening. If you would like to hear an hour of me giving us a little rundown about it,

you can come over and listen to Under the Duvet over on Patreon for $5 and up patrons. We're talking about Ukraine all over the shop there. But I just wanted to say one thing that I saw on Instagram that kind of relates to this that I absolutely loved. I know what you're going to say. Is it the Ukrainian farmers with their tractors just like towing away russian tanks and artillery i saw it i think i saw it on twitter actually and it was just like this massive like combine harvesters or tractors or whatever the ukrainian farmers have got and

they're just like because what's happening is the russian troops like when they're running out of supplies they're running out of petrol and stuff so that 40 mile long like column we're seeing of invading forces approaching kiev when they run out of petrol, a lot of the Russian soldiers are just like bailing. They're just like abandoning their tank because they don't know why they're there. Or they're finding out that they've been lied to. When they get abandoned, the Ukrainian farmers are just towing them away, which I love. But anyway, way off track. program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators

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to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Okay, so let's get back to this particular cow farming jogger.

It was the early morning and he was jogging along and then he saw, discarded in a plastic bag, caught in a space between two rocks on the shore, the body of the Kerry baby. The body was then handed to Tom Cornyn, who's the local undertaker, who had the child baptised and paid for his funeral. It may seem odd to baptize a dead child. However, in Catholicism, if you are an unbaptized child, you go to the same part of purgatory as people who have killed themselves. So that's why.

Does it still work if you're already dead then? I think the theory is yes, because sometimes when grown-up people die and there isn't quite time for their last rites, the priest can do that for a dead person. It's considered better if they're still alive. Suboptimal. It's suboptimal, yeah.

It's kind of a lot like a Hail Mary, if you will pardon the expression. Yes, for want of a better term. So Tom, the local undertaker, paid for this baby's funeral and all of the times that the Kerry baby's grave has been vandalized it's been Tom who's financed the repairs the vandalism part is it's not what you think it is we'll get on to how politically important this case was the vandalism of the grave is nothing to do with the baby and all to do with the treatment of women in Ireland really because that we'll get onto this but like the message I forgive was seen as like I forgive the original sin of women whereas the women are like no we don't need forgiveness we

need help and structure oh so it's not to do with because when I first read about the vandalism I thought it was senseless also but it's not to do with the baby it's to do with women I see I see because when I saw that it was like obviously hannah did the research for this so i listeners i'm learning along with you when it was like john i forgive i thought it was like the baby forgiving the person who had killed them well exactly but yeah the idea is so yes it is that but the person who killed them was probably an unwed mother who needed help got it got it who wouldn't have been in that position if there was more support for unwed mothers, blah, blah, blah, lots of structural religious stuff

that we will come on to later. So it's not to do with baby hating, it's to do with hating woman hating, basically. I see, I see. Good to clear that up. Yes. So in the brief moments between the baptism and the baby being interred in the ground,

a pathologist discerned that this baby was born about five days before he was discovered. He had lived a short 48 hours, and then he'd been washed, his neck broken, and found a few days later. And as it was ascertained that the baby had in fact lived in this world for 48 hours, this was treated by the Garda as a murder investigation, and the murder squad were called all the way down from Dublin. And the king of the murder squad was a Kerry man himself, one Superintendent John Courtney,

and his first port of call in this investigation was Cura, a Catholic organisation that was supposed to help unwed mothers. This organisation had been established just the year before in Kerry in the midst of a country-wide anti-abortion campaign, which if you know anything about Ireland and the Catholic Church will come as absolutely no surprise at all to anybody. It was in 1983 that abortion being illegal was officially written into the constitution of the country. So it was obviously illegal before that. But it was written into the constitution. So it's unconstitutional to have an abortion in Ireland at this time in history. Wow.

Wow. So after the discovery of the Kerry baby hit the press, Cura sent out an anonymous letter to the Kerry County paper imploring any women that needed help to call them. Presumably, that help involved handing those women over to the police. But it didn't work. No one got in touch with Cura. So Superintendent Courtney called the Bon Secours Hospital.

And if you've listened to our episode on TUME, you will know that the Bon Secours are an order of nuns responsible for multiple mother and baby homes, and therefore hundreds of dead babies. And that is not an exaggeration. No, hundreds is probably a bit of an under-exaggeration actually. So Superintendent Courtney asked the nuns if they were aware of any local women who had been pregnant, and then very obviously not pregnant, with no baby to show for all of the not being pregnant. But Superintendent Courtney, just like with Cura, had no luck with

the nuns either, so he rang the next hospital on his list, which was called St Catherine's. And St Catherine's gave him the names of three unmarried women who'd recently been on their maternity ward. Two of these women had cast iron alibis for the time that the beach baby would have been killed and abandoned, but one of these women did not. And that woman's name was Joanne Hayes. She had come onto the ward on the 14th of April, just hours before the Kerry baby was discovered. And her uterus had been, this is a quote, recently emptied. And that's according to her file. Oh, God. I do not like that term.

It's not a particularly delicate way of putting it. Recently emptied. Like a bladder. Or a bowel. Or a washing-up bowl. Yeah. The gynaecologist that had treated the heavily bleeding Joanne was a renowned pro-lifer, not uncommon in Ireland at that time, and he'd seen this sort of thing before. Joanne had told him that there was no baby, but he knew that that just could not be true looking at her scan. But again, this was not out of the ordinary.

Usually after a few questions, the women would admit that there was a dead baby somewhere, and then they would be encouraged to bring it into the hospital for a post-mortem. No one ever involved the police. Until now. A pro-lifer this doctor may have been, but he told the police that he really did not think that Joanne Hayes was the mother of the baby found on the beach. But the Gardaí did not listen. Joanne Hayes was from the little village of Abbey Dorney, home to only 200 people. She lived in a Listen. pregnant. He even knew who the father was, but he was sure that she had miscarried in hospital and therefore couldn't be the mother of the Kerry baby. Joanne's sister Kathleen confirmed this story for him. This sort of trope of Irish people being net curtain twitchers and like all sort of up in each other's business, they take it so personally. there was actually a book published in 1918 it's called the valley of the squinting windows and it's about this sort of like you know this woman returns and

she has like i think she has a baby outside of wedlock or like she's not happy in the marriage she has an affair and everyone's talking about it that book was banned in ireland what yeah oh wow because of this sort of uh gossipy thing. They don't like it. Oh, wow. Who knew? Guys, everyone's at it. Don't worry. Look at all those people dobbing their neighbours in.

They were like, how many walks have you been on today? Oh, yeah. The fucking COVID narc hotline. So, yeah. Joanne's sister, Kathleen, confirmed this story for him. Most of Joanne's family were unemployed. Her eldest auntie was a nun who went by the very imposing name, we thought, of Sister Aquinas.

Yeah. That's scary shit. Yeah, well, you get to choose your name when you... Oh, do you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'll have like... So I've known a Sister Edward. So like when you're confirmed in the Catholic Church, you get to choose your confirmation name because you are an adult within the church now. So when you become a nun, you get a nun name and she must have chosen Aquinas. Well, do you know what?

If you're going to do it, if you get to choose your own sister name, go the whole fucking hog and call yourself Sister Aquinas. What would you be? I don't know. Let's come back to it because I also don't know and then you're going to ask me and I don't have an answer. You can be Sister Ganesh.

Sister Ganesh. Oh, God. So the next in line was Joanne's auntie, Bridie. Bridie hadn't worked or driven a car for years because Bridie liked to drink. Just like my Bridie. She loves a warm Baileys, that woman. Brilliant. I mean, you know what?

I'll give her that. You like a drink, give up the car. Yeah, yeah. You know. I think there's a bit of a family intervention about it so joanne was the only one in the house with a paying job she was a receptionist at the local leisure center and it was at this job that joanne had met her baby daddy a man named jeremiah lock which sounds way more pasto than the 80s. Yes, it does. Jeremiah Locke in here with his fucking doubloon and his codpiece. Yeah, he sounds like he's in great expectations or something.

He sounds like he's about to get on the fucking Mayflower. Yes, he does. Yeah, he does. And Jeremiah Locke, he's got a bit of a scandalous twist to him in this story. He certainly does. Because Mr. Locke was a married man. Also, I was going to do the bow-chicka-wow-wow sound. Because Mr. Locke was a married man. Da da da da. Mm-hmm.

Also, I was going to do the bow chicka wow wow sound but I can't. And I can't remember whether I put this in or not. At this time in Ireland, being divorced is illegal.

Ah, yes. Yes, yes. So whether things are going well or not in Marriage Town, he is in Marriage Town. Yes. He's mayor of Marriage Town. Mm-hmm.

And his co-partner in being mayor of marriage town was a woman that he had married called mary and they had married just six months before he and joanne had met i feel like if divorce is illegal i'm gonna give it a second before i get married and then you get married and then in six months time you've already got a wandering eye mr jeremiah Locke. Yeah, Jeremiah Locke's not my favourite guy. No, I don't like him at all. Get on that fucking Mayflower, you piece of shit.

In spite of Jeremiah, however fleetingly, being the mayor of Marriage Town for just six months, Jeremiah and Joanne were not secretive about their extracurricular activities, not even at work. They flirted openly, doing stuff like play fighting, etc. So everyone at the leisure centre knew what was going on.

Oh, you don't need to be a window twitcher to get your eyes all over this scandal then. Just need to go for a swim at the leisure centre. So I'm guessing also, contextually, if abortion is constitutionally illegal, divorce is illegal, there are extracurricular activities of the sexual nature not super cool not super cool for women men never see any consequence women get sent to magdalene laurie's yeah for that sort of thing because as we will go on to see at this time in oland and i would venture to say there are some of the old guards still around. It was considered that being an unwed mother was quite literally worse than being dead.

Wow. I'm saying wow but I find that incredibly easy to believe obviously because my family are from India which literally couldn't think of anything worse than being an unwed mother. Like you will just be, you're a whore. That's's what it would be obviously my parents don't think like that thankfully though they would be like just go to the registry just go to the registry office like you can do everything else later but just go to the registry office like that piece of paper is going to make a fucking difference but I understand so my grandparents who live in very very rural India they need like full-time carer basically because my grandma has unfortunately got dementia and one of my granddad's brother's kids, so his niece, is looking after them and her husband passed away a few years ago and she's got quite a lot of debt so we pay off her debt and she looks after my grandparents. She's an amazing woman. Her daughter got married recently and had a baby

and my grandma, although she has dementia, was like, how how's that baby how's that baby here already didn't they only get married six months ago and obviously we all know that she got pregnant before they got married so quick shotgun wedding and my grandma who literally it's really sad but it's like what can we do apart from be like all right grandma like there's no one in the garden she thinks like people are in the garden to like come break into the house and she hides everything in this one cupboard so if you're ever looking for anything it's in that cupboard the woman who is not in the best state of mind still worked out she can count to nine she can count to nine and she was like it's our baby doing her I know and it looks like a normal size baby it

doesn't look like a three-month premature baby. I know. And then she goes back to yelling about someone stealing the milk. So let's trickle back from rural India to rural Ireland, where the rules are pretty similar. Joanne and Jeremiah were not keeping their affair a secret, apart from Joanne's family. They were none the wiser.

Or at least they were until Mary Locke showed up at their house with Jeremiah's mum and her own sister to unbliss their ignorance. Uh-oh. These three very angry women informed Joanne's mum that her daughter was having an adulterous affair with one Jeremiah Locke. They added that Mary Locke was eight months pregnant and they demanded that the canoodling stopped. What they didn't know was that Joanne was pregnant too. Neither Joanne nor Jeremiah returned to their

own beds that night. They stayed with some friends outside Tralee. But as much as Joanne may have hoped that Jeremiah would choose her, he didn't. The next day he went home and made up with his heavily pregnant wife and Joanne had to go home to her dumbstruck family. Joanne swore to them that she was done with Jeremiah and was just going to get on with her life. Mary Locke gave birth on the 25th of June 1982. Joanne miscarried on the 30th of June. Five days later. Yeah she was just 25 years old. Joanne still had to work with Jeremiah because while he was being mayor of Marriage Town and now Father Town he still worked at the leisure centre with her. And jobs are scarce. Yep. And so obviously this meant that when she saw him, she had to congratulate him on his firstborn,

while at the same time revealing her miscarriage, which is... I can't think of many worse statements or sentences that would have to come out of my mouth. I've been thinking for some time of trying to think of something worse than that. There's little. And she loves him too.

Yeah. Like, it's pretty tragic stuff. Yeah. So Jeremiah continued to give Joanne lifts to work and by August 1982, they were back at it. And by the end of the summer, Joanne was pregnant again. Joanne and Jeremiah's daughter, Yvonne, was born on the 19th of May, 1983.

Joanne was over the moon. Her family were very much not. Nevertheless, the whole Hayes family doted on the child, but how little Yvonne came to be was just not discussed. Yeah, not discussed. Yeah, like that three months that is missing in our family baby. Just three months after Yvonne was born, Joanne was pregnant yet again. And so was Jeremiah's wife, Mary Locke. Fucking hell, Jeremiah. Can you just? No, he can't.

No. He clearly cannot. Clearly cannot. This boy needs to learn some... Pull-out game. Pull-out game. This is the weakest pull-out game I've ever seen. It truly, truly is.

Like... Also, if you're listening, the pull-out method does not work. It doesn't work. We do not... We do not advocate the pull-out game I've ever seen. It truly, truly is. Also, if you're listening, the pull-out method does not work. It doesn't work. We do not... We do not advocate the pull-out method. We do not approve this message. No. So you may be thinking about A, Jeremiah's pull-out game,

and B, that that's quite a lot of pregnancies in quite a short amount of time, especially for people conducting illicit affairs that are secret. And you would be thinking, right, the reason that there are quite so many babies is that in Ireland at this time, contraception was quite literally illegal if you weren't married. Oh, God. In fact, 10 out of 12 pharmacies in Ireland in the 80s

refused to stock condoms at all. And the chemist in Caercyveen happened to be one of them. Oh good. This rule was taken so seriously that condoms ordered by a doctor for personal use were impounded at docs in Cork. It's no joke. It's no joke at all. And of course, the abortion ban being written into the constitution in 1983 meant lots and lots of babies and a society of shame meant crushing unwed mothers. Yep, sounds about right. This backward and archaic legal move was voted for in a referendum where less than 50% of the population made it to the polls. The enshrining of the abortion ban was in part a response to a conservative worry that after

Ireland joined the European Economic Community, later to become the EU, the Irish law would be wiped out by unethical European laws on abortion and wonky bananas. So wanting to preserve the moral foundation of Ireland, which in case you need reminding is inextricably linked with the Catholic Church, who famously believed that life begins at conception and therefore no abortions no abortions none whatsoever i even think they so they obviously do what what are their thoughts on the pullout pullout's fine um pullout's fine so the the reason that something like the contraceptive pill was approved by the pope for married women who need it for medical reasons only is because so condoms aren't allowed because they interfere with what god has put in place

right you're putting a man-made barrier exactly so the rhythm method that's fine because you're not fucking with anything pulling out fine not very effective what's the rhythm method it's where you count when you're ovulating and don't have sex on the days you're ovulating so that's like that's the catholic church's favorite one also don't do that don't do that don't have sex on the days you're ovulating. So that's the Catholic Church's favourite one. Also, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do any of these. Don't do any of these. So the pill was allowed, not for unmarried people,

but it was allowed eventually because it just increases the level of hormones in your body. It doesn't interfere. It sort of plays with what's already there. So that's kind of... The mental gymnastics they did to allow it. Exactly. But condoms are not the vibe. No, no.

So unwed mothers were offered no support at all by the state, whereas single fathers were often given a stipend. On top of that, divorce was illegal until 1996. 1996. I can remember 1996. Fucking hell. Fucking hell. I was seven years old. I can remember it. This is outrageous. Obviously, separations did happen. It's not like the state was going to come around and make you live together. But it would have been very, very rare because of the societal shame. Exactly. And also getting stuff like single parents allowance,

like getting any sort of support from the state being separated was extremely difficult absolutely so obviously it doesn't take a genius to see the hypocrisy in all of this no you can't have a termination but you also can't have a nice life either you'll be stuck in a mother and baby home and be abused by nuns instead this is the constant argument isn't it when people are like anti-choice it's like this idea of like no no because we must preserve the sanctity of life and that's why you're not allowed to do this okay can i have some like adequate support afterwards and medical protection no no don't be stupid do you you got yourself into this situation yeah just stop doing sex take some personal responsibility you know that thing that we are evolutionarily driven to do literally all the time it's the only thing our bodies care about don't do that no and then when

you do you have to have it yeah we're not going to help you but you also can't have a job outside of the home either no I mean all of this is again very reminiscent to to many times in history and sadly still parts of the world today but I think the unique Irish twist to this is the mother and baby homes. That is the thing that is unique in this case. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come.

This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The sanctity of the family was put in the Irish constitution in 1937. And in case you're wondering, what on earth does the sanctity of the family mean? Well, it's code, for a woman's life is less important than the foetus that she carries. The liberalism of the 60s and 70s seemed to pass Ireland by. The ultra-conservatism regarding reproduction rights remained firmly in place. And it was written in stone by the abortion referendum in 1983.

And as we said, that referendum, only 50% of the electorate turned out to vote. So we can't use it to say that the entirety of Ireland felt that this was appropriate. And it's actually not fair to say that everyone agreed with this regressive ideology. In fact, Joanne Hayes would soon find herself at the centre of a woman's rights movement in conjunction with another tragic set of circumstances. It's impossible to talk about Joanne and what happened to her without comparing the story of Anne Lovett, a case that forced Ireland to look at the story of Anne Lovett, a case that forced Arland to look at the consequences of their legal infractions.

In January 1984, so just months before the Kersiveen baby was found, 15-year-old Anne Lovett was found dead in a grotto dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Longford. Anne had died of exposure after delivering a stillborn baby. Almost everyone around Anne, including the nuns who ran the convent school that she attended, denied knowing that she was pregnant, claiming that they would have helped her had they known. Although that help was almost certainly sending her to a mother and baby home like the one in Tum. Yeah, I mean, I think if a terrified teenager is keeping a terrifying pregnancy secret from you It's because she's more terrified of what you're going to do to her than having a baby on her own in a grotto And that's exactly what the Anne Lovett case shines a spotlight on And of course, this is nonsense that nobody knew

In reality, a lot of people knew that Anne was pregnant There was a strong rumour that the pregnancy was actually a result of sexual abuse. Anne's own father was the man that many suspected to be the culprit. People knew, they just didn't do anything about it, and Anne died. Her 15 years came to a close as she lay freezing and alone in the pouring rain, after having sought out the Virgin Mary for comfort. The public reaction to Anne's death was emotional, self-conscious even. The people around her were forced to consider what was more important. Was it their moral high horses, or was it the life of a 15-year-old girl? This national introspection meant that the cracks between Old Ireland and New Ireland were beginning to show,

and they resulted in a collective guilt. Because the fact is, Anne Lovett's death happened in Longford, but it could have happened anywhere. Anywhere Christian values of tolerance are overshadowed by rules about sex and babies, written by men who have never had sex or babies. Anne Lovett's funeral saw more attendees than any the region had ever seen, but that doesn't change the fact that she died alone. And the sad fact is, there were some, not many, but some, who thought that the way Anne died was more virtuous than living the life of an unwed mother. An attitude which may seem totally out of touch with the mid

80s and the rest of the western world and there's a reason for that. The women's liberation movement was extremely late to get going in Ireland and to give you an example, a statistic to back that up, in 1975 less than 10% of married Irish women worked at all. Wow. So when you're looking at stuff like divorce and separations it's impossible because you can't work, You're probably not educated so you can't support yourself. You're not getting any money from the state so of course you have to stay married. Of course. I mean that is the classic system by which to oppress women. Don't educate them. Don't allow them to work. Allow them to have no economic independence and then keep them tied as baby making machines and kitchen cleaners to whatever piece of shit husband they end up with. And speaking of kitchen cleaners, unmarried women were confined to unskilled domestic roles. That's if they managed to

not have a baby. Unmarried women who got pregnant were sent to the Magdalene laundries. If you don't know what the Magdalene laundries are, I would be surprised. There is a film called The Magdalene Sisters, which is a fictionalization. It's probably one of the most harrowing films I've ever seen. It's one of those sort of like compilation of many stories in the same thing. And that will show you what it is and what it was like. Also, you can go and listen to our episode on TUME. So that's the women. The men, who, in case you needed a quick reminder,

are just as responsible for the making of babies, just went on with their lives. No consequences whatsoever for them. As Bishop Joseph Cassidy said on National Radio in 1983 that, quote, the most dangerous place to be at the moment is in the mother's womb, absolutely nothing was said about who else has to be involved to get a baby in a womb in the first place. The Magdalene laundries were run by Catholic nuns. They were staffed by fallen women. And, of course, by fallen women, they mean sex workers, unwed mothers, orphans, abused children, and any woman or girl deemed to be promiscuous.

It really did not take much. Yeah. These women washed and mended clothes for religious institutions, the defence forces, public hospitals, public schools, prisons, parliament, the land commission and various other government departments. It's basically, yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's institutionalised slavery. And this was a business. It wasn't just about the virtue of it. It wasn't just about the moral policing of it. This was a business that was run for profit. But of course, the women and the girls who worked there, quote unquote, were paid nothing. And there was no education either. Of course not. You don't want to be educating these people. Meaning that if they ever made

it out back into the real world, it would be next to impossible for them to survive. The inmates were also given new names, like they're in a fucking prisoner of war camp. And talking and friendships were strictly forbidden. They just spent years in silence. Yeah. Total silence, just washing priests' pants. Fucking hell. At the very least, 10,000 women and girls passed through the laundry system between 1922 and, brace yourself, 1996. Yes, because the very last Magdalene Laundry closed its doors in 1996. And ironically, it was called Our Lady of Charity. Isn't that just the kicker? Yeah, I mean, kick me in the dick and call me Sister Aquinas.

Sister Aquinas. Sister Ganesh. Our Lady of the charity. Fucking hell. So this charitable institution, which you will all remember was a for-profit state-run business. When this Dublin-based convent was bought by a property developer, 155 bodies were discovered buried on the grounds. There are countless stories of women who spent so long in the homes

that they were too institutionalised to survive outside. Others have tale of abuse at the hands of the nuns, head shaving, squalid conditions, beatings. Honestly, anything you can come close to imagining, double it and you're still not even close. I mean, I'm sure some nuns are fine, but I've only had terrible experiences. I've yet to meet one that is.

No, I obviously went to a Catholic school in India when I was first first in school. Those bitches, man. They be fucking... Yeah. And they're worse because they're missionaries. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're the worst ones. They are the worst.

Fucking hell. I wonder what my fingers would be like if I didn't get smacked across my fucking knuckles by rulers every single day. If you want to read Magdalene Laundrie's stories, you can find an absolute plethora of them. We can't tell you all of them, but this one particularly stood out to me. This story comes from someone who's just called Miss Coppin in the press. She was sent into the laundry system at two years old. At 19, she tried to kill herself by setting herself on fire. Why is she in there at two years old? Awful. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Eventually, she escaped to England, where she still lives now and is well into her 70s. That's what happens a lot of, like, either when people escaped or they were sort of, like, liberated from the laundries. A lot of women just came to England to get as far away from Ireland as they possibly could. Yeah. With no passport. So now that we have a bit more background, we know that what happened to Anne was not only happening everywhere,

it was institutional. It was woven into the very tapestry of the country. Joanne Hayes was not met with the same sympathy that the memory of Anne Lovett was, however. She was not seen as an innocent who should have asked for help. She was a scarlet woman who had no business getting nasty with a married man. I mean, it's, you know, we talk a lot on this show about the kind of Madonna-whore complex. You know, that's typically within like a sort of micro version of like one one person usually a man looking at multiple women in that way this is almost not almost it is it's like a institutionalized country-wide systemic

madonna whore complex and it's also like i'm gonna try and phrase this properly it's like oh if something really fucking awful happened to you like like incestuous abuse, that's fine. If you love someone and you conceive a baby, that's not fine. And it's also just the idea, obviously, like, Anne Lovett's story is gut-wrenchingly horrendous, but it's the symbolism of her carrying that abuse, almost like maybe seen by some as like a virtuous way to even protect her father in a way by not saying anything if it was him. And then also dying in a grotto in front of the Virgin Mary. It's like almost like a sainthood like journey or story. Whereas the give a fuck about Joanne Hayes who found herself in the end result same situation, but her story of how she gets there means she's a whore. So the police tracked Joanne down and asked her how her womb came to be emptied before she went to St

Catherine's Hospital and this is the transcript of the first time that Joanne gave her side of the story because remember when she went to St Catherine's Hospital that's when they said her uterus had been recently emptied and that is the doctor who actually said that he didn't think she had had or killed the Kerry baby. But this is what she said. Quote, I had the baby boy at home. I delivered the baby myself on the 12th of April, 1984. I panicked and hid it.

The baby is dead. I buried it at home. When she was asked for a more detailed account, Joanne elaborated and said the following. On Thursday night, so the 12th of April 1984, sometime around half eleven or twelve o'clock, I gave birth to a baby boy of six to seven months, in a field at my brother's farm.

I delivered the baby myself with my own hands. I delivered the baby standing up. I panicked, and then I put the baby down on some hay. I went home and said nothing. I panicked. And then I put the baby down on some hay. I went home and said nothing. I went to bed and couldn't sleep. I got up at 5am. I sat down and had some tea and went back to bed until 7.30am. I got up and went out to the baby.

I put my baby into a blue and white plastic bag. I think it was a bag from O'Carroll's chemists. I put the baby into a brown paper bag first and then into the plastic bag, I mean. I put the baby down in the river. It's a pool of water. Then Joanne went to St Catherine's Hospital where she stayed for six days. Joanne wasn't really sure how far along she was, six months, eight months maybe, but she was sure that she would have called her son Shane. This confession, however traumatic it may have been for Joanne, wasn't what the Gardie needed for their narrative. So they told Joanne that she was lying.

They said that actually her baby had been born alive and that she had stabbed it to death and then left it on White Strand, which, dear listener, is a whole 50 miles away from Joanne's home. Eventually, after a lot of threats to her family, including her daughter being put in an orphanage, selling her mum's farm, putting her whole family in prison, etc, etc, etc, Joanne Hayes ended up signing a totally different confession, one in which she said that she had killed the baby in a family home in Abidorni, and that her brothers, Ned and Mike, had thrown the baby into the sea. And then in a bizarre twist, her family agreed with her.

Every family member told a different story, though. Some claimed that Joanne had given birth in her bedroom. Others said that her auntie Bridie was with her. Some said the baby was born alive. Some said it wasn't. In some accounts, Joanne hit the baby with a toilet brush. In others, she strangled the baby with her bare hands when it wouldn't stop crying. In some stories, she did both.

Kathleen, Joanne's sister, had said that she had gone to dispose of the body with the brothers Michael and Ned, but Michael and Ned said that Kathleen wasn't in the car at all. Aunty Bridie was the only one who didn't say anything. She just said that the whole thing was far too upsetting for her to talk about. It was hardly a watertight narrative, but nonetheless, on the 1st of May 1984, Joanne Hayes, at just 24 years old, was charged with the murder of the Karsavine baby and sent to Limerick Prison to await trial.

But the discrepancies in the Hayes family stories would soon prove to be the least of the Gardies' worries, because the very next day, Joanne told her sister Kathleen where her baby Shane could be found. He wasn't the Cahasavine baby. He was buried on the farm, just like Joanne had said in her first confession, and lo and behold, investigators found Joanne's baby exactly where she said it would be. Her baby was on her family farm in a puddle, not on a beach 50 miles away.

The baby found on the farm had its blood tested and was found to be type O, which made sense because both Joanne and Jeremiah Locke share this blood type. But crucially, the Kahasayvin baby had type A blood. In order for someone to be born type A, at least one of their parents needs to have type A blood. So now, Cardi have a very big problem.

The baby on the beach scientifically couldn't be that of Joanne and Jeremiah. But instead of clearing Joanne instantly with this pretty solid fact that they had discovered, the Garda had another trick up their sleeve. The murder squad decided that Joanne must actually have given birth to twins. One of them had been left on the farm in the puddle and the other had been driven 50 miles to the beach and left there. And you're probably wondering, well, that doesn't really explain why the Cajasivine baby is blood type A. Well, they got around the blood type problem by reading up on the incredibly rare medical phenomenon called heteropaternal superfecundation. So essentially, the murder squad decided that Joanne had had sex with both Jeremiah and another mystery man who had blood type A within a 48-hour period.

It gets so much worse. This is what happens when you don't have sex education in school. Yeah. This is exactly what happens. It's a group of adult men being like, well, maybe, maybe this is completely possible rather than perhaps exploring another avenue and letting Joanne go. They're like, no, it's obviously her. It's obviously's obviously her look at her she's a slag exactly we checked all the unwed mothers who'd emptied their wombs it's got to be her i like the idea that there's just like a scientist they're like how many scientists do you think there are in rural kerry i don't know who are they

i don't know who they're talking the person who was like it's blood type a and he's like i don't know. Who were they talking to? I don't know who they're talking to. The person who was like, it's blood type A. And he's like, I don't know. I can't help you with anything else. It's just the local biology teacher. Basically, what they're saying is that Joanne had managed to release two separate eggs during that one ovulation cycle. And then she'd obviously had sex with two different men, one who had blood type A, and one was Jeremiah Locke. And then as a result of these ovulation antics, she had become pregnant with two babies who had different fathers at the same time.

Exactly. So they are banking this whole murder charge on the idea that not only has she magically managed to produce two exatons, which is incredibly rare, she also managed to do that and have sex with two different men within that exact window of time the odds are astonishing

yeah basically they're saying it's like the equivalent of fraternal twins but with two separate fathers that's exactly what they're saying yeah yeah yeah because obviously to have fraternal twins you need to have multiple eggs that have been released at the same time. So obviously that does happen. Does hetero-parental superfungation actually happen? Yes, it does. It does happen. This does happen.

But there are a few different stats that do get thrown around about this. One 1990 study claimed that about 1 in 400 pairs of fraternal twins fit into the superfecundation description, whilst another study suggests that it's more like 1 in 13,000 cases. That's quite a big differential there. The thing is, it's very, very difficult to actually get the real figure because, let's face it, it's not something that a lot of women want to admit to. Also, if you are, say, only with one sexual

partner and you have fraternal twins, who's going to check if you got pregnant during the same sex moment or did it happen the next day or did it happen the day after? People trying for kids are probably having to bang quite a lot. So who knows? You just don't know. The only time that this phenomenon would become apparent is if it were ever discovered that the two babies had different fathers. Exactly. So the dark figure when when you're looking at this particular statistic, is completely unknowable. So it's very difficult to say how often it does happen, but it is extremely unlikely. But nevertheless, this theory and the suspected guilt of Joanne Hayes and her magical uterus were forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions,

which is the Irish equivalent of the CPS. Essentially, they decide what goes to court and what does not. And luckily, someone, someone at the DPP had their head screwed on. And they saw that the murder charge were full of shit and instructed them to withdraw the charges against Joanne and her family at the very first opportunity. And the murder squad did as they were told, and all charges were dropped on the 10th of October 1984. A couple of weeks later, an internal police inquiry was carried out. Its aim was to find out just how something so ridiculous could have made it as far as the DPP.

But that report was inconclusive, and that decision was met by such public outrage that on the 28th of December 1984, a tribunal of inquiry began. So what that means is it's not the police marking their own homework, it's being taken into the justice system, it's being taken out of the Garda. But that might sound like progress, but my little saucies, this tribunal is the shit show to end all shit shows it only gets worse justice kevin lynch was in charge of determining what really happened to joanne where it all went wrong and whether the investigating guardee really threatened the hayes family into making false confessions during this tribunal there were 15 legal men in the room the judge the attorneys the solicitors, etc.

Not a solitary single one of them had ever witnessed a birth. And as a result of this, Justice Lynch seemed entirely unconvinced that giving birth standing up, as Joanne claimed that she had, was even possible. That's really the thing that brings the whole case down. That's all you need to know about Justice Kevin Lynch. Yeah. So law expert Vicky Conway had done a great job of pointing out major problems with this tribunal of inquiry and Justice Kev. So we've just stolen them. Yeah, we've nicked them. Vicky, love you. Great work.

I've linked the article, so read it. It's great. So Kev got off to an absolutely terrible start he opened the tribunal by saying quote insofar as one can see an analogy with a trial it is some similarity to a civil action by the hayes family for damages against the guards okay sure wrong absolutely wrong yeah it's not a trial it's not a civil action suit. There is nothing adversarial about this. It was supposed to be a fact-finding mission. Also, Kev made absolutely no bones about who he thought was in the wrong.

He referred to Joanne Haynes repeatedly as the wrongdoer, which Vicky Conway says set an inappropriately accusatorial standard. I think that is to say the least. Yes, I think she's being very diplomatic and legal-speaky about it, but it's atrocious. Yeah. Next up, the superfecundation nonsense. This stayed around for way too long. It was first raised on day three, but not dismissed until day 72 of this tribunal. Yeah so for like 69 days it's not

presented as fact but it is considered as a possible avenue. Exactly. There was lengthy speculation about who the type A blood man could have been. The Gardie thought that it could have been a man called Tom Flynn whose name was found written in biro on Joanne's mattress. This is amazing. It was discovered that Tom Flynn had just worked in the factory where the mattress was made, wrote his name on it, and then moved to America in the 60s. 20 years ago. Sure, good.

But the possibility of Tom Flynn being the father of the Caja Saivín baby was seriously considered. So they know this, right? They know that not only has he never met Joanne, she just ended up with this mattress. They know he moved to America in the 60s and they are still presenting this at the tribunal like it's worth a second thought. Just in case you're not feeling exasperated enough already,

we're not even close to being done. Kev also said, quote, There were times when we all thought she'd had twins. Why? There's literally no evidence. No. Absolutely none. Also, unlike Anne Lover, Joanne's pregnancy wasn't secret.

It wasn't discussed of how she got that way. It wasn't a secret. Everyone knew she was pregnant. Literally nobody thought she was having twins and it's even more ridiculous and concept when you consider that multiple people took the stand to say that joanne looked totally normal she looked like a totally normal pregnant person she was seven and a half stone that is tiny if she was carrying twins it would have been incredibly obvious. And it goes without saying, this supercondition nonsense, the twins bullshit, the mattress biro, all of this stuff pulls focus away from the whole point of the tribunal,

which was to find out whether the guarder had done something wrong. Yeah, because it very much comes across like Joanne Haynes is on trial. And we've come across so many cases before where we see the police fishing around for evidence to make their theory fit. I don't think we've ever seen one quite as brazen as this. No, this is really quite something. Kev was not bothered by the fishing for evidence at all. And we see that in the absolutely atrocious way he treated Joanne Haynes, who, as Saru just said, had her charges dropped against her.

She was not on trial. She was questioned for five days, which, by the way, is the longest anyone had ever been on the stand in Irish history. Joanne was asked well over 2,000 questions, many of which were wildly inappropriate and pointless. She was asked about her first miscarriage, her sexual partners, her blood clots, the size of her uterus, all stuff like that.

It's completely pointless and intrusive. In a society where men don't even know if babies can be born standing up, she is expected to be on the stand and be like, oh, well, when I had my first miscarriage, I had a blood clot the size of a golf ball. And then all of the men turned green and faint. Like, it's absolutely outrageous.

And Joanne, this really took quite a terrible toll on her. She had a full breakdown in court. She was shaking, hyperventilating, even vomiting. But despite all of that, two psychiatrists, guess what gender they were, agreed that Joanne had not displayed enough of the quote-unquote normal behaviours of a grieving woman. Actually, one of them, who was called Dr Fennelly,

said that Joanne displayed, quote, not a degree of guilt at this stage. Not as much as I might have thought she would have. What do you want? And also, guilt for what? Having a miscarriage. Yeah, having a miscarriage. Having a stillborn baby.

Or are you saying, you're jumping straight to the fact well we've already, surely we've already decided she did stab this baby to death and she's not displaying any guilt for that like it's just so it's a lot so following Joanne's breakdown Kev refused to let her take a break

he ordered that she be sedated instead so then she'd have to answer questions, completely doped out of her mind. When he does this, it's so callous, because instead of like adjourning or letting her go and lie down for an hour, he's like, well, she's going to be just as upset later on, so let's just get on with it. But also simultaneously, she's not upset enough. Yeah. Cool. And just in case, like you've forgotten, Joanne is there at this tribunal as a witness. She was not on trial. But still, a great deal of the tribunal was focused on whether

or not Joanne was a liar. Of course, the truth of her testimony did need to be determined, but that is not what happened. Instead, she was tortured. Psychological evidence was presented in an attempt to prove Joanne to be dishonest, but the guards were given no such treatment. The guards who were the ones who were the subject of this fucking tribunal. The report produced at the end of the tribunal made not a single mention of legal standards the guard are expected to meet when dealing with infanticide or concealment of birth which granted there wasn't loads of room for in the legal system at the time but still no legal standards at all seems a bit off yeah it's like this is yes in the external justice

system but it is an institutional inquiry into the handling of this by a state-run department of the police. So it seems so bizarre that there is absolutely no indication of like, oh, well, on page three of this manual, it should have been handled like this. None of that is said at all. Then there was also the matter of the umbilical cord. This is some shit. This is some shit. Joanne's umbilical cord was carted around with Kev everywhere he went. Joanne had always maintained that she had broken the umbilical cord with her hands.

As it was severed, it was 14 and a half inches long. Umbilical cords, just so you know, can grow up to 24 inches in a full-time pregnancy. Kev couldn't believe that it was possible for Joanne to have broken the umbilical connected to her baby Shane with her hands. Believing that she was carrying twins conceived of two different fathers within 48 hours of each other, though, that he could believe. He's obsessed with this umbilical cord, man. Like, he quite literally carries it. And it's like this exhibit at the trial. Like, can you imagine giving birth to a stillborn baby and then you have to look at the umbilical cord that you broke with your own hands

in the field in the middle of the night? And the man who was acting like your fucking personal witch finder general carries it around in his fucking pocket all the time, shit. Yeah, yeah. Just shocking levels of reproductive knowledge here. And then, if we look at this from an institutional perspective, no Garda interview techniques were examined. The fact that the Hayes family were never told

that they weren't actually under arrest and were free to leave at any time isn't brought up at all. And there was no mention made of the threats that Joanne claimed the Garda made against her and her family. Why? That's the whole point of the tribunal and it does not get spoken about at all yeah i mean it really feels like not that people lost sight of what they were there to do but like they didn't give a single fuck about what they were there to do and uh if you need another example of that you

probably don't but tough shit justice kev called joanne the main and dominant force in the relationship with Jeremiah. He said that she was anxious to become pregnant, with absolutely no evidence at all. Um, also, what? In a world where that's not a good thing to happen to you? And she's already got one. Yeah, but she's like, she's anxious to become pregnant. Okay.

And Jeremiah gets, I mean, not surprisingly, gets out of this completely scot-free he was told that although he had absolutely no intention of leaving his wife which he says in court he's like i was never gonna leave her i had absolutely no intention of leaving my wife staying mayor of marriage town yes exactly he was told even though he's the one that's having the adulterous relationship he is the one that is married he was told, even though he's the one that's having the adulterous relationship, he is the one that is married, he was told that this situation would be handled delicately in order to spare his reputation. And the misogyny does not stop there. This is my favourite one. Dr. McCaffrey, the clinical director of psychiatry for the Eastern Health Board, told the tribunal that Joanne Hayes had, quote, got herself pregnant three times.

Well, fuck me, Joanne. You're quite the talented woman there. Wouldn't that make her the virgin? Shouldn't she be lauded? Get her a grotto? Even better than the virgin. She did it three times. Fucking hell.

Where's her grotto? You're right. We've got some more ridiculous evidence for you. Kev also discerned that in his final report that Joanne did hit her baby on the head with a toilet brush, even though the state pathologist testified specifically that this was not the case. Justice Kevin Lynch found Joanne responsible for her baby's death with no consideration or evidence at all. I know that this is not a hot take and this is an incredibly hacky thing to say,

but all I can think in my head while we're reading all of this is fucking witch trial. Yeah, that's all it is. Because if Joanne Haynes is responsible for every single dead baby that washes up on a beach in Ireland or on a farm,

then nobody has to look at the institutional problems that have caused that to happen. Of course, of course. So with all that considered, all of the things we've just spoken about, in today's Ireland, realistically, there probably is grounds for a new inquiry into the mistreatment of the Hayes family. But putting Joanne through all of that again probably isn't the right thing to do. Now you won't be surprised to hear that there were protests outside the tribunal. Women from all walks of life gathered outside in support of Joanne, her family, and the child that she had lost.

Those who couldn't make it in person sent flowers and letters of support. Kev decided that these protests constituted, quote, serious and unwarranted harassment. Okay. And he also felt that he could decide at any time to have the protesters, who he called raucous, ignorant urban dwellers, sent to jail. He then expressed total confusion, declaring, quote,

what have I got to do with the women of Ireland in general? What have the women of Ireland in general got to do with this case? You could not make it up, mate. Mate. Oh, it is ridiculous. I mean, what the fuck? They've got more to do with this case than you do, since you didn't even know that a baby can be delivered standing up.

But you've gone out of your way to educate yourself on the incredibly rare, rare, rare, rare medical phenomenon of am i gonna say it again hetero parental superfungation well done great great news so now that we've vented they're gonna do a little bit more just a little bit more so what happened in the end with this absolute shit show of a tribunal nothing a whole lot of nothing where joanne was accused of being a bare-faced liar, the Garda were found to be, at most, guilty of, and this is a quote from Kev, elevated wishful thinking to the status of hard fact.

So while they were accused of, at worst, gilding the lily, Joanne was presented as the absolute worst woman alive. The effects for Joanne are pretty catastrophic. Not only is her face all over the papers, she wasn't even allowed to go back to her old job. When they had offered her maternity leave, they had immediately reopened her position. And the lucky person who got the job had to pass an exam.

That exam just so happened to fall on the day after Joanne was released from psychiatric hospital. So she was far too ill to sit the exam. And her employer informed her that it simply wasn't possible to reschedule the exam or to let Joanne Hayes, who had just been let out of psychiatric hospital and had worked at that leisure centre for years, it was impossible to let her sit the exam for her own job another day. Now we don't know too much about Joanne now. Understandably, after all that she's been through, she's kept a low profile, giving statements to the press only

through her attorney, Pat Mann. Despite the outcry at the time, Joanne, although grateful for the support, was bewildered by the thousands of women who reached out and took to the streets for her. She never saw her plight as a feminist issue, although the letters wrote to her read, quote, you are paying the price of reform for all of us. It would be 30 years before Joanne would receive an apology from Gardie. In 2015, the then commissioner called the investigation and subsequent inquest grossly negligent. This statement was followed up with the exhumation of the baby found on the beach all the way back in 1984. A DNA test was carried out which proved conclusively that Joanne Hayes was absolutely not his mother, but we all already knew that. So whoever broke that baby's neck and

stabbed him 28 times has never been brought to justice. What that justice looks like, I can't tell you. You have to make your own mind up. And although the guard would now admit the whole thing to be a significant regret and have appealed to the public for information all of these years later, it's not going to do any good. The state would drag their heels too. It would take them 35 years to apologise to Joanne and her family. In 2019, the Hayes started high court proceedings against the Garda Commissioner and the Director of Public Prosecution. After months of deliberation, she was awarded £1.5 million as a settlement

and her siblings were awarded £300,000 each as compensation. Her daughter Yvonne was also given 100 000 the court also declared that in their questioning arrest charge and subsequent persecution of Joanne and the whole Hayes family was unfounded and a breach of the Irish constitution but it all seems too little too late like thanks like it's such a you know like when we did it at guilford ford it's like jerry conlon saying being awarded money by the government is like being given a revolver and a bottle of whiskey that's kind of how it feels like you can't undo that you can't repair that no i think there's no solace to be taken in what happened to joanne. Only, I guess, a great case study in what you can see of Ireland

in terms of how far it has come since. Because again, so many times during this story we're like, oh my God, this was, you know, after we were born. This is very recent history. And to see now how far Ireland has come since the days when this was a common thing that was happening

or this was a non-shocking thing. Like a man like Justice fucking Kev being like, I don't understand why people are protesting. the days when this was a common thing that was happening or this was a non-shocking thing like a man like justice fucking kev being like i don't understand why people are protesting shows you that it can happen anywhere absolutely and i think the really key thing about joanne although joanne has never seen her case as a particularly feminist issue it you know, obviously is used a lot in argument. And I do think that Joanne Hayes and Anne Lovett happening so closely time wise forced Irish people to look at the cause and effect of having such incredibly backward laws on reproductive health. So there you are. Happy St. Patrick's Day. A week in advance.

A week in advance. A rage-inducing case for you. I would recommend, one of the major sources for this was a book by Nell McCafferty. It's called The Kerry Babies, A Woman to Blame. And I would recommend reading that.

It's an easy read. It's not tricky. But that gives you a really nice rundown of the women's liberation movement in Ireland and how important this case was. Absolutely. So yeah, that is the pretty fucking harrowing story of the Kerry babies. If you would like, well, I'll say a palate cleanser. It's not probably going to be a huge palate cleanser. But you can hop on over to patreon right now if you are a patron and listen to under the duvet which is of course our after party and when i say hop on over to patreon listen you don't have to listen there guys because the website is shit you can listen on your very own podcast player just follow the instructions in the very handy little video we made on how to use your private rss feed it's really simple i promise but unless you are a ten dollar on our page and

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