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.

www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/i-was-ann-lovett-s-boyfriend-1.3484311

so that's Anne Lovett's boyfriend has spoken out and explained the cover-up by the Garda Siochana and the Catholic Church. His daughter has also spoken out - www.facebook.com/stonetape1/posts/1847876071943519

Incendiary stuff

Wow, just wow. Shocking stuff, but on the other hand not really shocking.
Catholic Ireland cover ups.

I was just going to post that Irish Times link.

I think he is correct to assert that anyone would have helped Ann if she had approached them.

I am wondering if any DNA collection was done or if it would be possible at this stage. McDonnell might or might not have been the father of the baby. I am also curious about the reported bruise on the left side of Patricia Lovett's chin and the scratch on her left cheek that were noted by the coroner after her suicide.

(I knew I had a recollection of mention of a boyfriend in the army.)

Yeah, maybe people would have helped her, but I was 15 at that time and I certainly would have expected to be ostracised, punished, shamed - so I guess Ann would have had no way of knowing that someone would have helped her.

We had no notion that any redemption or forgiveness might be possible until after Gaybo's programme with the letters.

And come on, we all know what the "help" would have consisted of.

She'd probably have been ostracised and the family shamed rather than supported.

I am not so sure about ostracisation, shaming, etc., though I grew up in Dublin (born in the 60s) and people may well have been a lot more relaxed about teen motherhood where I lived. Many of my contemporaries had babies as teens (late 70s, early 80s, about the time I was doing the Leaving Cert) and many of my neighbours adopted babies too (late 60s, early 70s). None of the babies born from the late 70s were given up for adoption. Things had changed a good deal in the 70s.

And it is also true that Ireland was in the throes of the divorce and abortion referenda and the intense debate leading up to those events at that time, and some very extreme views on pregnancy, women, what women should expect from life, etc., were expressed in people;s homes and on the radio that could well have made a young teenage girl feel very desperate and isolated.

The letters mentioned in the IT article that were discovered by Ann's friends in the box under her bed - one not addressed to anyone in particular and one addressed to Richard McDonnell - may point to a sense of feeling completely isolated, and terrible fear of exposure of herself and her family.

*I find it very odd that Ann's parents had not gone through her room to see if there was any clue as to her state of mind, and those letters were there when they invited her friends to come and take any tokens of her that they had wanted.

It all sounds terribly sad, doesn't it?
Not remotely surprised to hear that the Catholic Church were up to their old tricks, secrecy and lies.
But what were Ann's parents doing when she was out all night? Wasn't she meant to be doing her homework and getting up for school in the morning?
More questions than answers really...

I agree Mother.
More questions than answers.
I wondered too about a young girl being allowed out all night, what about school ?
A young boy, living alone in a house.
Two daughters dead, in tragic circumstances within three months.
The heartbreak in that family.
Have their siblings ever spoken of the events to the media ?
Who was the father of the baby ?
Was it Ricky's ?
Who had injured Ann ?
No doubt local people have their own theories.
Such a sad story.
May Ann and her sister, Patricia and baby rest in peace.

Why was the interview done at this time ?
The Mail on Sunday has picked up this story ( the Irish Times interview ) and has it as its front page.
Just as we are about to vote in the abortion referendum to repeal the 8th amendment.

Yes, the interview was clearly timed to sway the electorate...

Because people are empty headed and have no personal points of reference to steer them one way or the other...

The article might be seen in the context of the referendum, but the idea that it 'was clearly timed to sway the electorate' is a bit silly - was the cervical check scandal also timed to sway the electorate? There is such a litany of abuses, scandals and stories of negligence against Irish women you could say the same about any week's worth of news stories.

NB - Ann was pregnant in the lead-up to the 1983 referendum on the 8th amendment (passed into law October 1983, she died January 1984) and the horrific tactics of the pro-life side wouldn't exactly have encouraged her to tell anyone about her pregnancy or to have sought help to go to England for a termination.

I was rolling my eyes at the suggestion of timing, btw. Hence the

I am not so sure about ostracisation, shaming, etc., though I grew up in Dublin (born in the 60s) and people may well have been a lot more relaxed about teen motherhood where I lived.

It was much different outside Dublin, families were shamed and often vilified from the altar or by teachers in schools. Parents would warn their daughters to keep away from a girl that got pregnant in case the pregnant girl led their daughter astray or be judged by the company they kept.

A lot of girls had their babies adopted, very few kept them without having a shotgun wedding. My sister was 15 when she gave birth to her baby a month after Ann Lovett had her baby and died.

I have previously read a lot about this case and had never seen anywhere that she had a boyfriend and was staying out all night with him... Am amazed that her parents allowed this when she was 14???!

Surely they can't have been so shocked that she became pregnant?

And that they were then allowing their younger daughter (aged 13/14?) out to a dance only 12 weeks after Anns death? With the boy who was the probable father of Ann's baby?!

I was brought up by a widowed workaholic and largely absent father - and no way could I have stayed unsupervised in a boys house all night.

I am very puzzled by all of that too, Eighttimeseight.

I had read at the time that she had a boyfriend (and that he was in the army) - but the details of staying out all night were not printed at the time.

It's strange reading this now. I was sure at the time they said her mother was dead.

There's a lot of stuff being implied between the lines in that article.

Jane
I found the article strange.
It left me with more questions than answers.
I had forgotten that Ann's sister had died by suicide only four months later.
How devastating for the family.
Are Ann's siblings still living in Ireland I wondered when reading the article.
It must be so painful for them.
What 'stuff being implied' ?
Perhaps you could pm me ?

eloise I don't have any inside info just my own thoughts after reading that. It seemed to imply that she had been raped and didn't think her boyfriend was the father. That's my take on it.

Mine too, JaneJeffer. Though there is only one person coming forward with the account of Ann being beaten (McDonnell).

And her sister had facial injuries at the time of her death which don't seem to have been queried.

Yes, a bruise and a scratch, mentioned once as if in passing.

The newspaper have the names of the two friends who were present when the letters were found in Ann's bedroom. I wonder if they will confirm or deny the letters existed.

I too got the impression the boyfriend was not the father and she had been raped by someone else.
One of my dds read it and wondered the same and was full of questions which I couldn't answer.

There have been a lot if rumours online over the years that the baby was a result if incest. That Ann and her sister were being abused by her father, hence the sisters suicide too. All rumours though and I certainly have no insider knowledge!

My mum suspected incest all those years ago.