1. Larry Wren and the Kerry Babies scandal.

Garda Commissioner Ned Garvey established the ‘Heavy Gang’ in the 1970s. It drew officers from across the force, including some from Special Branch. It targeted criminal gangs and paramilitaries. When the unit’s existence first emerged, the nation was largely appalled—though some were prepared to turn a blind eye. No one anticipated that the Heavy Gang’s methods would be turned against an ordinary family in Kerry. Yet that is precisely what happened in what became known as the Kerry Babies scandal.

Investigative journalist Frank Connolly has now published ‘Exposed: Scandals that Rocked the Irish State’, chronicling a selection of stories he investigated during his career. Among them, the Kerry Babies chapter stands out.

The sordid saga unfolded in 1984, when a brutally murdered infant’s body was found on White Strand beach, Cahersiveen, County Kerry. The infant – a boy – had a broken neck and 28 stab wounds. He became known as ‘Baby John’.

As Connolly’s book describes, it is now established that ‘Baby John’s’ family included two gardaí. Yet rather than pursue enquiries in the locality where the baby was murdered, the authorities soon shifted their focus—and deployed heavy-handed tactics—towards the family of Joanne Hayes, a young mother whose own infant had died 80 km away in Abbeydorney, North Kerry. Under pressure, members of the Hayes family were coerced into making false confessions about the murder of Baby Hayes. The attempt to frame them collapsed only when the remains of the Hayes infant were discovered, proving the authorities’ case was fundamentally flawed.

The State convened a public inquiry. The Kerry Babies Tribunal took place in December 1984 and concluded after 82 days of hearings. In a move that defied credibility, state witnesses advanced the extraordinary claim that Hayes could have been carrying twins fathered by two different men. At the time, a popular Kerry joke book circulated a quip: when asked what a Kerry twin father did on hearing the news of the birth of two infants, the reply was that he went looking for the other man. In effect, the gardaí were peddling a theory straight out of a Kerry joke book.

The original investigation into the murdered infant remained dormant for decades. The parents of Baby John were identified by DNA after their arrests in 2023. A garda file was sent to the DPP in 2026 but no charges have yet been filed. Their solicitor had complained repeatedly about their treatment but has said nothing about Baby John.

Connolly’s book explores the story in far richer detail than I am outlining here; it is essential reading on the issue.

When Connolly reopened his investigation into the case in more recent times, a file had not yet been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Shortly after his enquiries began, however, one was dispatched. It is reasonable to ask: would anything have happened at all if Connolly had not returned to look at the story?

The saga is the very definition of a cover-up. The Garda Commissioner, 1983-1987, was Larry Wren—a man who once boasted on RTE television that he knew virtually everything of note taking place within the force. It is inconceivable that he did anything other than micromanage the investigation into the murdered Kerry infant.

It is now beginning to look like Heavy Gang tactics were deliberately deployed during the Kerry Babies affair — specifically to shield gardaí within the murdered infant’s own family from scrutiny and to protect the force’s reputation.

2. Larry Wren and the Majella Moynihan Inquisition.

Would Larry Wren have had contempt for Joanne Hayes for having had a child out of wedlock?

Was Wren capable of framing an innocent Kerry family to preserve the reputation of the force?

Wren is a much neglected figure in Irish history.

He was a Bible-thumping ultra-Catholic who brought his religious views to bear on the gardaí.

Wren’s tenure as Garda Commissioner was also marked by the shameful treatment of Majella Moynihan, an unmarried trainee garda who became pregnant. Her ordeal exposed the deep, ultra-Catholic influence Wren had brought to the force.

Wren consulted Archbishop McNamara about the Moynihan case. McNamara told him not to dismiss her from the force lest it encourage others to have abortions to preserve their careers.

She was then subjected to a disciplinary hearing at which she was charged with the offence of having had sex and giving birth to a child.

Majella Moynihan was brought into a room full of middle-aged men, sat down in the middle of them and grilled about her sex life.

She was also coerced into giving up her child, a boy.

Majella Moynihan was driven to such despair that she attempted suicide five times, and once ended up in St. John of Gods.

3. Wren and swearing to the tell the truth about the British spy under his command.

Wren was a man of staggering hypocrisy. Under oath in court, he swore to tell the truth while placing his hand on the Bible—and then proceeded to perjure himself. He did so during the trial of Patrick Crinnion, a garda who had betrayed Irish state secrets to the British Secret Service. From the witness box, Wren described Crinnion as a clerical officer, despite knowing perfectly well that Crinnion was a senior intelligence officer within Garda C3 who had also participated in special branch operations, including the capture of the chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, Sean MacStíofáin. Worse still, Wren let the court hear how Crinnion had only served in that post for less than a year, when in fact his service at C3 spanned more than a decade. Wren interacted with Crinnion on a daily basis during 1971-1979, while he was Crinnion’s superior. C3 was a small unit based at Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park. Such was Crinnion’s importance and expertise in matters relating to Republican paramilitaries that it was he who drew up the ‘Confidential Monthly’ reports for the government.

Wren was also involved in the unauthorised disclosure of confidential garda intelligence to British authorities—information that, on occasion, assisted an operation that led to the kidnapping of an Irish citizen.

Wren’s relationship with the British Secret Service is a story I shall return to – given time – at a later stage.

4. Wren and the death of John Corcoran.

Wren’s name has recently emerged from the fog surrounding the scapegoating and murder of John Corcoran, a garda agent operating inside the IRA. Corcoran’s former handler, J.P. O’Sullivan, has detailed how Corcoran was set up for murder by another agent: Sean O’Callaghan, a member of the IRA Army Council and a double agent working for both Garda Intelligence and MI5.

Wren sought to blame O’Sullivan for the catastrophe, implying negligence — even though O’Sullivan had taken every conceivable step to safeguard his agent. The full account is set out in O’Sullivan’s book, Veil of Silence. In light of what is now known, it appears that MI5—and possibly one or more figures within the gardaí—allowed the raid to proceed to expose Corcoran as a garda agent thereby deflection attention from O’Callaghan.

After Costigan heard about the incident, he asked the young garda to make a statement so Wren could be prosecuted for assault but he declined. Had Wren been prosecuted and found guilty, he might have been drummed out of the garda. At the very least, the incident would have been put on his record and damaged his prospects of any further promotion. (The recruit – now deceased – went on to enjoy great success and admiration in the force, particularly after facing down notorious criminals such as Rossi Walsh and Martin Cahill.)

6. Promotions on religious merit.

In 1983 Fine Gael and Labour appointed Wren as Garda Commissioner. He used his standing to appoint religious gardaí to key positions. This practice became well-known within the force. One garda – described by his colleagues as a ‘wild’ man who liked a drink – decided to take advantage of it. He and a friend pitched up at the church at which Wren worshipped. The plan was to be seen by Wren at the mass and possibly bump into him after it.

He struck it lucky. Wren was outside collecting for St Vincent de Paul.

The officer turned to his friend and said: ‘Give me a few bob’. A pound note was pressed into his palm. He presented it to Wren. A short conversation ensued during which Wren came to learn that the man was a garda. A promotion to sergeant followed hot on the heels of the donation. The joke in the force was that the sergeant had ‘purchased his promotion for a pound‘.

7. Magdalene laundries.

The Gardai were complicit in hunting down women who managed to escape the clutches of the Catholic Church’s Magdalene laundry network. All told, 30,000 women were exploited as de facto slave labour by the Church at various laundries. The last one closed down in 1996. The presence of Wren and religious zealots like him in the ranks, over decades, provides an explanation as to why these women were treated as if they were criminals by the police.

While Wren and his subordinates were tormenting Majella Moynihan and other vulnerable women, the gardai were taking no steps against an array priests and Christian brothers who were groping, molesting and raping young children.

8. Pilgrimage to Lourdes.

In 1984, Wren led a Garda Pilgrimage to Lourdes. This was not the first occasion on which this had occurred. In 1930, Eoin O’Duffy had led 350 police officers, albeit not in uniform. Wren led a uniformed delegation.

Wren stepped down as Garda Commissioner in November 1987. In retirement he continued to display his apparent piety at the daily mass at St Brigid’s. He served as President of the North Dublin Conference of the St Vincent de Paul and as a member of the Third Order of St Frances.

The Church also exerted its influence over the police via the Knights of St. Columbanus, a secretive Catholic organisation. Many senior gardai were knights.

When Wren died, he was described by The Irish Times as having had ‘a clear, incisive mind and a reputation for straight dealing’.

By David Burke.