An investigation is under way into the desecration of the grave of the infant at the centre of the the "Kerry Baby" case in Cahersiveen 20 years ago.
Gardaí believe that a heavy instrument, possibly a sledgehammer, was used to smash the black marble slab which was erected earlier this year to mark the grave of the newborn baby boy.
Insp Martin McCarthy said yesterday he was not following any particular line of inquiry at this point. However, he said, "we have noted no other headstones have been damaged".
To desecrate a grave was "an appalling act", he added. All cultures had respect for the dead.
The baby's grave is towards the back of the graveyard on the Waterville road and not near the roadside.
Gardaí are particularly anxious to talk to anyone who visited the graveyard between Sunday and 10 p.m. on Wednesday, when the damage was discovered, Insp McCarthy said.
The body of the infant with multiple stab wounds was found on the White Strand in Cahersiveen 20 years ago.
The discovery set off a chain of events which led to a tribunal of inquiry, a Garda investigation involving the murder squad and attempts to prove Ms Joanne Hayes, from Abbeydorney in north Kerry, could have given birth to twins by two different fathers. The child's blood type was found not to match that of Ms Hayes or the man she was having an affair with.
It was concluded Ms Hayes could not possibly have been the mother of the Cahersiveen child.
The facts of the boy's death or his origins have never been established, and the case remains unsolved. A post-mortem found he had been murdered.
The man who baptised the infant when it was found in 1984, Mr Tom Cournane, a Cahersiveen undertaker, expressed his deep upset yesterday.
He said he was "sickened" by the destruction of the grave.
"The child was not left alone in life, now they can't leave him rest in death," he said.
Mr Cournane has tended the grave during the past 20 years, replacing the simple wooden cross with the marble slab headstone last February and erecting kerbing and covering. The baby's grave had been damaged before, he said, though not seriously.
The inscription on the headstone erected by Mr Cournane reads: "I am the Kerry Baby baptised 14-04-1984, named John, and I forgive."
The damage was discovered by a local woman, Ms Noreen Devane from Portmagee.
She had been visiting the graveyard and contacted Mr Cournane.
Mr Cournane said he had no doubt that a sledgehammer had been used to desecrate the grave.
The slab in the quiet Kerry cemetery had been smashed into "smithereens".