The Kerry Babies: An Irish Scandal
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How was the newborn baby’s body discovered on White Strand Beach in 1984?
Waves lap on the shore of the small coastal town of Cahersavine and County Kerry. It is a cool spring day. The sixteenth of april nineteen eighty four. It is a Monday. Around four PM. Local school children, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides line the approach to the town's cemetery. It's a small graveyard overlooking the wild Atlantic Ocean. Gusty winds whip in off the sea. The children form a choir, singing religious hymns as the local undertaker, Tom Cornan, passes through the crowd carrying a tiny white coffin. It is barely larger than the shoebox. In that tiny coffin lies the body of a baby boy. Last night Tom slept in the funeral home. Alongside the baby in his tiny coffin. He didn't want him to be alone. The infant's body was found lying on the cold sand of the nearby White Strand Beach just two days ago.
Tom had gone to the beach after the terrible discovery was made. He had performed a simple open air christening of the baby. He used fresh water from a nearby stream and named the unknown baby. He called him John. They will call him Baby John. But nobody knows his real name. Nobody knows who his parents are, or how he ended up on that remote beach in West Kerry. They will not know for many decades that But the search to find out will become one of Ireland's most infamous and controversial criminal investigations, and a series of events that had a profound impact on Irish society. In the small Holy Cross Cemetery in Car Savine on that cool spring day. Prayers are said, and a simple cross is placed on the infant's grave.
It's inscribed with the words I and the Carey Baby baptized on the fourteenth of the fourth, nineteen eighty four, named John. I forgive.
When someone is killed in Ireland, the Guardi call in a specialist unit of forensic crime scene examiners from the Technical Bureau. This is Ireland's real life version of CSI. But it's nothing like the movies or TV shows. For twenty five years I was one of the detectives on that team. My name is John Sweet. My job as a guarded detective in the Technical Bureau was to read the evidence that could not speak for itself. I learned to see what others might miss. Fingerprints smudged on a handle of a door, weapons disguised in everyday objects, handwritten notes that revealed more than the writer ever intended. The smallest traces often unraveled the big story, and now I'm here to tell you those stories. In this podcast from Gol Out, I take you inside some of Ireland's most haunting investigations.
This is lines of inquiry. A Go Loud original podcast that follows the evidence step by step and tries to uncover the real story behind the headlines. In this episode, we examine the case of the Kerry babies. Two tragically short lives whose untimely deaths had long lasting impacts on the social fabric of the Irish nation.
There were few people on White Strand Beach in Cahersavine on Saturday evening, the fourteenth of april, nineteen eighty four. It had been abnormally warm that year. With record setting temperatures across the country. But by eight o'clock the light was beginning to fade, and John Griffin had the beach almost to himself. John liked to keep fit, and was an active member of the local athletics club. That evening he jogged between the rocks on the hard sand where the sea met the shore. Something pink caught his eye, over to his right. He kept running. He thought it was a doll. Curiosity then got the better of him, so he turned back for a closer look. It was face down, but the dark hair was too realistic to be a doll.
This was the body of a very small child. John blessed himself. He didn't want to touch the infant, but he had to raise the alarm. He sprinted for two miles until he arrived to his brother in law's house. His wife's eighteen year old nephew, Brendan, was outside fixing up a car. Together they drove back to the beach. It was dark when they arrived. By the low light of the moon, they could just about make out the shape of a tiny child lying face down next to a rocky outcrop. Beside the remains were three grey fertilizer bags.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
How was the newborn baby’s body discovered on White Strand Beach in 1984?
0:05–14:00
2
What forensic evidence did the post‑mortem reveal about the baby’s injuries and time of death?
14:00–28:24
3
How did the Garda Technical Bureau’s investigation focus on Joanne Hayes as a suspect?
28:24–44:14
4
What was the ‘super‑fecundation’ theory and how did it shape the case?
44:14–1:00:54
5
What role did the Kerry Babies Tribunal play and how were witnesses questioned?
1:00:54–1:07:02