Woman denies killing newborn baby with knitting needle

A woman accused of stabbing to death her newborn granddaughter with a knitting needle at the family home in Dalkey, Co Dublin, in 1973 has denied the accusations.

Speaking in a television interview last night the woman, who was not identified, said her daughter had directed false sexual abuse and infanticide accusations against her and husband.

"She knew that I knitted, I knitted baby coats . . . and that's why she said that. She should not have been allowed to put a tombstone on that grave because it has not been proved that that baby is hers."

The woman was reacting to claims by her 43-year-old daughter, referred to as Niamh in recent reports, that she was raped by her father and brothers throughout her childhood.

She has said she gave birth to a baby girl in 1973 when she was 11 and that this baby was killed by her mother, who used a knitting needle as the murder weapon.

Niamh has claimed that a baby girl found dumped in a lane in 1973 in DúLaoghaire was her baby. The infant was buried in the Little Angels plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

Niamh did not identify herself to gardaí as the child's mother until 1995, by which time she had undergone years of therapy in Britain where she lives.

Niamh also claimed she gave birth to a second child, a boy called John, in 1976 when she was 14 and that this child was buried in the back garden of the family home in Dalkey.

Gardaí have been excavating the garden since Monday. They have completed about one-third of their work but found nothing.

When the full allegations were put to Niamh's mother last night she said: "I don't know what to make of it because I know that I had 10 children for him [ her husband] and I thought I had enough for him.

"And I don't know how she's saying that, because I never ever seen anything like that going on. And you'd have to see it to believe it, to know that it's true."

She said the Garda dig in the family's former home in Dalkey would yield nothing.

"I want to tell Niamh that I'm leaving her up to God and to her granny in heaven that's looking down on her and her brothers and to tell them, to beg them, to forgive her but I don't think they ever will."