“Two more detectives from Dublin came in. They were roaring, shouting and one of them slapped me across the face twice. I was crying the whole time. They really frightened me.”
Further to yesterday’s apology from An Garda Siochana to Joanne Hayes for the “stress” caused to her over the Kerry Babies case.
The above is taken from a clip of Ms Hayes speaking to RTE in 1985.
The footage was played on RTE’s Six One last night.
RTE’s Six One also played a clip from an interview Ms Hayes had with Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show in 1985:
Gay Byrne: “Did you not expect the tribunal to find as it did?”
Joanne Hayes: “I didn’t expect a clap on the back but I didn’t expect they’d go so hard on me. After all, the tribunal was set up to look into the behaviour of the gardai but it was I who went on trial.”
And finally.
On last night’s Prime Time.
Dr Vicky Conway, an associate professor at Dublin City University’s School of Law and Government, and historian Diarmaid Ferriter discussed the Kerry Babies Tribunal.
Dr Conway said:
“Let’s not forget whether it was when she was being interviewed or the tribunal itself, she had just lost a child. This woman was grieving the loss of a child.
“And that was never really acknowledged in the tribunal.
“…when you read the reports and the transcripts of the tribunal, this was all about establishing Joanne as a liar, as a seductress, as a temptress…
“…one of the things that gets lost as well, despite the State pathologist saying that Joanne did not kill her own child, Mr Justice Kevin Lynch ruled that she did. He says that she choked her child and hit it over the head with a bath brush and there is no evidence to support that.
“And yet she has to live with the fact that a judge said that about her, that she killed her child when she did not.”
Watch RTE’s Six One and Prime Time back in full here
Irish Feminist Judgment Project: Kerry Babies case (Vicky Conway, Academia.edu)
Yesterday: Thirty Four Years Later
Meanwhile…
Hmm.
