Kerry babies & Ann Lovett case

[GeorgieBoy95]

I've been reading a lot about these two cases lately.

I never knew that this story relates to the third pregnancy of Joanne Hayes - she had a toddler who lived in the family home and had also had a late miscarriage. In this pregnancy she laboured in a field thirty yards from the house during the night - when the baby was stillborn she wrapped him in plastic and placed the bundle into a ditch. Where was the compassion for this poor woman and the baby? Was it her own shame that drove her out into the darkness to have the baby? Did the family make her leave the house to have the baby? It is all so terribly sad.

Also, the poor baby who washed up in Cahircivern had lived for 3 to 5 days and had then been stabbed 28 times.... Someone (and perhaps more than one) knows who this baby is - that person must have lived their life with that knowledge, knowing that the Hayes family had been drawn into it unfairly.

I also didn't know that Ann Lovett was one of eight siblings. Surely in a big family her pregnancy would have been noticed? She was in school that morning - did the teachers really not notice?! I was so utterly naive at 15 - I can't begin to imagine what that poor girl went through.

This was 1984. I would have been seven at the time. I am so thankful that Ireland has changed hugely since then.

There is a fantastic radio documentary about anne lovett on RTEs documentary on one and another thats available on rte international player. It's implied that of course her pregnancy was known about by her peers but the nuns at the school seemed to have chosen to ignore it.

I was 8 at the time. I remember my mother speaking scathingly about Joanne Hayes' morals. There was no compassion for the woman shouldering the whole responsibility of her circumstances. My mother was 36 and had been to university. In hindsight I would have expected more from her, but then my parents told me that if I ever got pregnant without being married they would have nothing more to do with me. I have no doubt they meant it. I knew of two young girls who concealed pregnancies until the very end (one until after the baby was born)and I knew a few whose parents had nothing more to do with them when they got pregnant. It was almost criminal to "get yourself" pregnant and it was always "the girl's fault".

Muffette the majority of women and men too had great sympathy for Joanne Hayes so much so that they held protests at the way she was being treated. I was a young adult at the time and remember it.

The Anne Lovett and Joanne Hayes scandals and I mean scandals in the way they were treated was the turning point in how unmarried pregnant females were treated.

Gerry O'Carroll is keeping very quiet now that it's been proven that Joanne Hayes is not baby "John's" mother, he's one nasty individual.

@Muffette, I was 4 at the time all this happened, but when I was in my teens (so mid 90s) my mother was exactly like this. Looking down her nose at any young girl who was pregnant and talking about the 'shame she brought on the family'. I was told at about 15/16 that if I ever got myself pregnant, I'd be kicked out. I'd love to know how she thought I was going to 'get myself' pregnant. Immaculate fucking conception presumably
Holy Catholic Ireland has a hell of a lot to answer for.
I see Leo Varadkar was getting a bit of stick too because he said he didn't know the full details of the case as he was quite young as it happened. In fairness he was the same age as me, so how was he supposed to?

It's entirely possible that Ann Lovett was raped or being abused - imagine that happening and the fear she must have felt throughout the nine months... What was going through her head on that cold, wet day? She must have been in terrible pain and yet she didn't go to her own home?? Her family lived on the Main Street of the town. May she rest in peace.

And I read today too that Ann Lovetts sister committed suicide three months later by taking an overdose of medication. They are buried together. Such incredible sadness.

I was in college at the time, and there was a lot of activism centered on those two cases, moreso the case of Ann Lovett than Joanne Hayes.

The early 80s was a time of uproar and massive upheaval in Irish society. Nobody had figured out how to sit down and talk about matters that were incredibly important. There was no mutually agreed set of basic principles on which to base a conversation. There were those who refused to even acknowledge that a conversation was possible or necessary.

The phrase 'she got herself pregnant' was used almost universally, and there were other phrases too, repeated with apparently no thought to their meaning or their implications. The deep-seated underlying assumptions were as impenetrable as bedrock back then.

Ann Lovett, as far as I recall, had a boyfriend who was an Army private, and he was the father of the baby. I don't recall now whether he knew of her pregnancy or whether he knew but denied it.... He was living in army quarters. I do recall at the time the suggestion that Ann had gone out of her way to hide her pregnancy but it could be that this was a case of people wishing to pretend after the fact that they had decided not to be tainted by association with her, which might have happened. Pregnant teens were like Untouchables.

Also, Ann's mother had died and her father was the only parent in the house. It's possible people suspected incest if they noticed she was pregnant, and while abhorring incest, nobody would directly engage with a family where incest was suspected. A lot of a community's reaction would depend on how the local Gardai were perceived. Social services were not considered the first responders back then.

Re Ann Lovett, so sad, and yes apparently the pregnancy was noticed but ignored. The nuns would have just sold the baby anyway so what use were they? The pain of that birth I can't imagine. Outrageous. The fact her dad was the sole parent is a factor in why no one intervened, lots of complicated reasons involving social history, his place as head of the house, lack of "interference", plus critically the Childcare Act 1991 had not yet been passed which allowed the State to intervene, investigate and take children into care if necessary. There was literally nowhere that child could turn.
Kerry babies a bit more complex, but still heartbreaking. Jeremiah Locke had his cake and fucking ate it. Is barely mentioned now but I write his name when I can. Couldn't keep it zipped up. Guards exhorted confessions allegedly from Joanne's brothers and from her re baby John which were lies it now appears.
For the record I'm close to Leo's age and I remember everything about both those cases but I did have parents working in healthcare....not like him. Oh wait......
He must have been very very sheltered.

Just to say living on a Main Street in any small Irish town in the 80s was sometimes reason enough NOT to go home as every neighbour would notice a schoolgirl in uniform going home when she should be at school.
I am not making this up.

Ann's mother hadn't died at the time. She only died fairly recently

I was nine when Ann Lovett died and I recall still Jeremiah Locke and Joanne Hayes. When I was in Inter Cert a girl in my year went to a Mother and baby home in Cork ( Magdalene Laundry? ) I don't know 😟

I was basing my post on PP re mother bring RIP
Didn't know that, thanks @Gobbolinothewitchscat

@Mammysin wasn't it Bessboro mother and baby Home there? Not a Magdalene laundry but all babies born adopted.

Jeremiah Locke- there's a blast from the past.
Did he ever leave his wife?
Did he and Joanne Hayes eventually get together ( live together/ marry) ?
I always had an issue with the baby being buried in a field but I'm a city girl, perhaps that was done then. I thought you had to inform authorities ?

Poor Anne Lovett.
Are her family still in the town?

A friend of mine was born in Bessboro and adopted. She had a good life, thank goodness and met her birth mother who is lovely apparently, but feels so much guilt for giving her up, despite my friend telling her there was nothing to feel guilty about, that she understood why she had to give her up.
Times were sooo different.

@hollyisalovelyname nobody buried babies in a field normally

Interesting that this has come up again while there is so much talk about repealing the 8th amendment.
I feel utter utter despair thinking of these cases. What was Ann meant to do? Whwt was her plan, or was she in denial or didn't realise? It's all too awful to think about this child going through this alone.

The Kerry Babies - someone or some people are very nervous I'd say. I thought it interesting they said they could like cousins etc. It's a crime that needs to be solved but it may make for very difficult reading.

Link not like

Apparently there are three Kerry babies.
Another baby was found near Waterville.

Does anyone know if any good sources where I could read about these cases? I was only a small kid at the time and I don't want to read anything too .. gratuitous? Disrespectful? Not sure of the word.

There was such a massive difference between 1985 and 1995 in Ireland.
Comparable to the sixties in the US.
There was the unmasking of the hypocrisy of the church, of course. Who can forget Annie Murphy tellung Gay Byrne she was a pretty great person herself? ( my mother said Thats the shtuff Annie, you tell him)
But I'm also inclined to give Roddy Doyle a bit of credit. He hit a lot of nerves with the Family and the Snapper. An film about a pregnant unmarried daughter, a comedy!? The family, the father supporting and defending her through it? A new perspective, thats for sure

Ah Bessboro, thank you, I haven't seen the girl since then though at the time (1991) she was vilified by her neighbours bet the father got off scot-free 😟. Are women treated any better in Ireland today though? Good enough to be exported to U.K. for terminations or possibly "allowed" to terminate but only if suicidal or foetus is not viable/incompatible with life? Sorry, my thoughts with all Irish women and girls, past,present and future that we can support each other regardless of "culture ", social mores and creed.

Ann Lovett mother was alive at the time and there were two parents in the home.

A quick google check shows that she was alive until relatively recently.

Her father died a few years later and is buried in the same grave.

I can't see anything reported anywhere that she had a boyfriend in the Army??

@justforthisnow, it's possible that you remember what you've heard since, but not what was actually happening at the time.
I mean I'm the same age as Leo and I was 4 going on 5 at the time and there's no way I remember any of what was actually happening at the time. I can't imagine his parents discussing it with a 4 year old either, no more than mine did, regardless of whether they were working in healthcare or not.