In 1956, children found a boy behind chicken wire in a locked hut. His story became a 70-year legend
'I just set the child inside the door and locked it in,' his mother had said.
In September 1956, 11-year-old Desmond Brennan was playing near a farm in Crossgar when he wandered toward an outhouse and peered inside. Tucked within the field were two wooden henhouses. When Brennan walked closer, he noticed that the door was locked and the windows were blocked with bags. In another moment, he felt a bag lift from a window, and he suddenly found a pair of human eyes staring back at him. The human was likely a child and was naked with long, matted hair. Brennan asked the human’s name but received no response. When he started to walk away, he heard someone crying inside. What started as an episode of mystery has now turned into an Irish folktale, the tale of the 7-year-old boy Kevin Halfpenny, nicknamed the “Henhouse boy,” also reported by Kurtis Reid of the Belfast Telegraph.
The boy behind the window
Halfpenny was born in 1949 to Margaret Halfpenny, a widowed mother. According to a Facebook post by Crossgar Life, he was born outside marriage, but exactly why she kept him isolated later became part of the speculation surrounding the case. The nurse who was present at his birth later confirmed that there was no record of abnormalities in the boy. His weight was above average at 8 lbs. After the birth, his mother brought him home near Annacloy, off the Loughinisland Road near the Woodgrange Road junction. The cottage had been there in the family for many generations. Margaret had four older children and had been widowed before Kevin was born. Kevin was her fifth child.
Accounts indicated that Kevin had spent years isolated in the outhouse during early childhood. When investigators arrived, they found him weighing just equal to two stones, around 28 lbs. Doctors found him severely underdeveloped, with bowed legs and rickets, and he could stand only briefly without falling. He couldn’t speak, just cluck like chickens, which is why he had the name “Chicken Boy.” A poet even dedicated a poem titled "Bye Child" to his story. Witnesses said some of his behavior appeared to mimic the chickens around him. Due to the lack of sunlight, he was suffering from a severe case of rickets.
Investigation begins
After the first time Brennan spotted a pair of eyes, he arrived at the henhouse again with other boys who, like him, ran away to tell their parents about a trapped human. Five days after the discovery, officials visited the farm and rescued Halfpenny. He was taken to Nazareth Lodge in Belfast, where doctors examined him, and he began receiving care. When James H. McSorley, Nazareth Lodge Medical Officer, examined the boy, he found him to be “mentally sub-normal” even though his legs were deformed and bowed as he sat.
Locked away from sunlight for five years
Meanwhile, an NSPCC inspector interrogated Margaret, who led him to the henhouse. He noticed that the windows were stuffed with bags and the wooden house was pilfered with animal excrement and the smell of urine. Margaret denied deliberately ill-treating Kevin but ultimately pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of neglect. However, she decided not to take him to the doctor because she thought the “phase would pass.” Her words contradicted the accounts of medical officers who said Halfpenny was thin, weak, and pale and could stand only for half a minute before he fell. “I just set the child inside the door and locked it in,” Margaret proclaimed.
What happened after Kevin was rescued
Margaret was arrested after Kevin was removed from the property. In October 1956, she pleaded guilty to neglect and was sentenced to nine months in prison. Kevin was placed in care and underwent extensive treatment, including surgery on his legs. Accounts of his later life became much less clear, which helped the case and Halfpenny grow into a local legend in the area.
'It was horrifying'
Many of the viewers admitted to seeing Halfpenny at some point during their lives in the area and thinking how horrifying his tale was. @donnadenvir605 commented, “I saw Kevin with nuns on the beach when I was a very young girl and was told who he was.” @marydevlin-v5t shared, “I saw Kevin one day in the grounds of the home with two nuns walking either side of Kevin, trying to help him to walk; he seemed to be doing quite well. I was there because my aunt used to take another boy out at weekends and holidays.”
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