The stories that changed Ireland

SEVERAL days after 15-year-old Ann Lovett died in hospital, just hours after giving birth to a 6½lb baby boy found dead beside a Co Longford grotto, an anonymous caller phoned the Sunday Tribune newspaper to explain what had happened on that cold and dark winter afternoon on Jan 31, 1984 outside Granard.

Later that day, the newspaper’s news editor and a few journalists, including Emily O’Reilly, who broke the story nationally the following day, debated whether to name the young girl in the article.

The argument that decided it was that nobody was going to remember the death of an anonymous girl, but everyone would always remember the death of Ann Lovett.