Talk:Kerry babies case

Superfecundation
Was this the dumbest moment in the history of the Gardai? Probably. Curtains99 21:03, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

-- No, that would be the Gardai's statement issued to reassure the public in the 1970s after the escape of a convicted murderer during transfer between two prisons: "He is no more dangerous than any other murderer." 88.32.216.139 (talk) 12:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

---In fairness to the guards, besides trying to justify their actions, they were probably genuinely confused as to why the family had confessed to the crime if they hadn't committed it, because it's quite clear they didn't beat a confession out of them - as far as I remember, the only allegation of brutality made by the family was that one sergeant had shouted at her and slapped her once (all of which he denied), which hardly seems enough to make her confess to something she hadn't done, let alone to make the entire family confess. Similar confusion may also have contributed to the judge accusing her of killing her own baby when there was little or no evidence for this claim - he then used guilt over this supposewd killing as his explanation for their confession in his report, again based on little or no evidence. My own dubious guess is that the real reason they confessed was to end the stress of being interrogated, confident in the reasonable but mistaken expectation that the case would be dropped as soon as their own dead baby was found, and by the time of the Tribunal they didn't dare to admit to this white lie for fear that admitting to having lied would cause people to doubt their denials that they were murderers. But I could easily be wrong, and reasonable discussion about the case is very difficult because of lots of warring ideologies (catholicism v feminism, liberal city v conservative country, etc), lots of emotions like guilt and self-righteousnss all round, as well as the detailed facts being largely forgotten (if they were ever really known), etc... Tlhslobus (talk) 06:06, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

---My memory in the above is clearly at least partly faulty, as it seems there were also allegations of intimidation and other unspecified 'coercion', which I didn't remember but which may have lead to a false confession, as the family claimed. Tlhslobus (talk) 08:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Sociopath
Please improve this by getting a citation; the shrink is seemingly called Dr John Fennelly, and the references that I've given show him describing Joanne Hayes as a Sociopath, but I have been unable to find any on-line reference to his admitting his definition covered half the population (even though it unsurprisingly caused quite a stir at the time, which is why I remember it), although there must be several offline references to it in books on the subject (probably including the Tom Inglis book already referenced), and in the backcopies of the Irish Times in UCD Library, but I don't have easy access to either. Tlhslobus (talk) 05:30, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Nell McCafferty's Book
The sentence mentioning Nell McCafferty's book seems standalone and a little out of place, in that the paragraph doesn't flow well. Could anyone who has read it expand on it, perhaps giving it a short paragraph? (And indeed ditto Joanne Hayes' My Story). Educationhousejavert (talk) 14:04, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Paragraph 1
The guarda case against Joanne Hayes was dropped by order of the DPP four months after it began, not four years.

Strictly, the DPP ordered that the case against her be not proceeded with in the courts.

Korhomme (talk) 20:27, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 5 May 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. All of MOS:CAPS, WP:TITLECAPS and WP:NCCAPS support the move, if there is no "substantial majority" of sources capitalizing "Kerry Babies case" in that form, given that "Kerry Babies" is not a proper name. I do not believe a substantial majority has been demonstrated, here; therefore, the lowercase form of "Kerry babies case", in sentence case, fits Wikipedia's policies best. (closed by non-admin page mover) Skarmory   (talk •   contribs)  23:38, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Kerry Babies case → Kerry babies case – Some of the sources don't capitalise "Babies" (e.g., in the headlines for Irish Independent, Irish Times, BBC). Uppercase for a plural is often hard to justify, and the word "case" is not capped. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 08:43, 5 May 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. EggRoll97 (talk) 23:35, 12 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The 'c' in case not being capitalised is irrelevant to discussion. Many sources - including some of the ones you list above - do indeed capitalise the Kerry Babies case. See, e.g., the Irish Independent, The Journal, the BBC, and RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:43, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, some do capitalize, while others don't. Generally, when the sources are mixed, Wikipedia prefers lowercase, per MOS:CAPS: "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. ... only words and phrases that are are capitalized in Wikipedia." WP:TITLECAPS: "generally only the first word and all proper names are capitalized". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 11:00, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The lowercase 'c' is not irrelevant. In "Cuban Missile Crisis", the whole phrase is treated as a proper noun, including the word "Crisis". If "Crisis" was not capitalized, "Missile" wouldn't be either. "Cuban Missile crisis" doesn't make sense as a sentence case title, because "Cuban Missile" is not a proper noun. Here, "Kerry Babies case" doesn't make sense as a sentence case title, because "Kerry Babies" is not a proper noun (per Dicklyon below). Thus, one could more easily argue that the title should be "Kerry Babies Case" than that it should be "Kerry Babies case". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 08:32, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support since the capitalization in sources in mixed. MOS:CAPS says we cap if capitalization in sources is consistent.  Plus "Kerry Babies" doesn't make much sense as a proper name, while "Kerry babies" is sensibly interpreted in the context of the topic.  Dicklyon (talk) 13:29, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Support. Not a proper name. Not capitalised on Wikipedia. Some sources capitalise everything. We don't. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:34, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Since evidence is mixed, we lowercase per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:56, 11 May 2023 (UTC)