by John Mooney
‘And I said, “No, she’s not coming home, but she’s going to be here minding us, because remember we talked about this before.”
‘“Oh I got it,” he says. “She’s with God now, and she’ll be looking down on me and everything I do from now on.”
‘And it’s been like that ever since, that everything we discuss, Mum has always been there and always will be. And we left there, my mother’s house, and we went to Stafford’s funeral home, and Veronica was there, and we had a chat, a cuddle and a laugh, like we always did, the three of us together. And we talked, and Cathal was saying, “Mum, you’re very cold,” and things like this. And then we left.’
The assassination of the journalist was formally announced at a packed press conference in Lucan Garda Station on the outskirts of the capital at 4.30 p.m. During the press conference, Superintendent Brian O’Higgins of the Garda Press Office said he had known the victim extremely well and that this made it all the more difficult. He described her assassination as ‘cold, callous and planned’.
News of the murder prompted a wave of revulsion and public outrage. Among the many atrocities that had convulsed Ireland, this murder stood out as by far the most despicable and cruel. Ireland was in the grip of organised crime that manifested itself in the cold-blooded murder of a journalist. The idea that gangland killings were never solved prospered in the underworld and the notion that the drug barons were untouchable was injected into the national consciousness.
In the Dáil, the Taoiseach, John Bruton, described the killing as sinister to the extreme. ‘Someone, somewhere decided to take her life and almost certainly did so to prevent information coming into the public arena.’ He went on to describe Guerin as a ‘particularly gifted and professional investigative journalist’ who had written about the unacceptable face of life. ‘She did so with care and with compassion. In doing so, she made an important contribution to the public life of this country. Without the work which she did, much of the recent public debate on crime would not have been as informed as it was.’
The Tánaiste and leader of the Labour Party, Dick Spring, stood up and told the hushed Dáil chambers that her murder was linked to her work. ‘That she should be shot down in this fashion is an attack on all of us and on the values that democracy and democratic politics are based on. It is an outrageous attack on the freedom of the press and the invaluable work that journalists do.’
The leader of Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern, expressed his shock, saying he hoped no effort would be spared to find her killers. But it was Mary Harney of the Progressive Democrats Party who made the most poignant tribute: ‘The greatest liberty we have is the liberty of free expression and the greatest guarantee we have of that liberty is a free press. Veronica Guerin died because she fearlessly pursued the truth. She was no ordinary journalist. She was a woman apart. Today the criminal underworld decided that in order that they could continue with their activities, she had to be murdered. In a matter of seconds, that enormous talent was taken away, and she had no chance.’
In the following days, papers devoted pages upon pages to the life and work of Veronica Guerin. The Irish Independent, a sister newspaper of the Sunday Independent, carried the headline ‘OUR DARKEST DAY’. In a front-page comment piece, the paper’s leader writer proclaimed: ‘Veronica Guerin knew no fear. She was attacked and threatened, but she carried on bravely in the noblest traditions of her craft with her work of investigating and exposing the crime barons. Now the barons have silenced her by depriving her of her right to life, the most fundamental right of all. They have shown themselves as much a threat to free speech as any totalitarian regime or terrorist organisation.’
There was an outpouring of grief by the Irish public, the likes of which had never before been witnessed. Ordinary people queued outside the offices of Independent Newspapers in Abbey Street to sign a book of condolences. Many voiced their anger over the airwaves, demanding that action be taken to jail the drug barons. Ordinary people arrived outside Government Buildings with floral wreaths and children’s toys and laid them at the gates along with letters written to the murdered journalist. ‘May our TDs show a fraction of your courage, Veronica. Rest in Peace . . . God comfort your family,’ read one letter attached to the stem of a single red rose.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) described the murder as a barbarous act designed to intimidate the media. ‘Veronica Guerin paid the ultimate price for her pursuit of the truth,’ the NUJ statement read. Editions of both Irish and British newspapers the next morning vowed never to give in to intimidation and resolved to implement a set of guidelines, aptly called the Guerin Principles. Dedicated to her memory, the principles stated that a fair, free and independent media was essential to democracy.
‘The State must ensure that a constitutional and legislative environment exists to facilitate freedom of expression and a free media,’ the principles urged. And in a final acknowledgement to the courage of the murdered journalist, the principles stated: ‘Media workers resolve to resist any attempts at intimidation in whatever form and from whatever quarter.’
The body was removed from Stafford’s funeral home to the Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven on the Malahide Road, beside Dublin Airport, two days later, on the following Friday. The funeral cortège left at 6 p.m. and arrived 30 minutes later to a packed church.
Three weeks earlier, Guerin and her husband had attended the funeral of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe who was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in Limerick during a hijacking. While attending the mass, Guerin had told her husband that if she was ever killed, she would like the hymn ‘Be Not Afraid’ sung at her funeral. In accordance with her wish, the congregation sang the hymn while her coffin was brought quietly into the sombre church and received by her friend Father Doyle and more than a dozen priests. When the coffin arrived at the altar, Cathal and his father slowly reached out and touched the casket.
An air of calm descended on the church, and as Father Doyle commenced the ceremony, Cathal left his seat and went alone to the church sacristy. He returned a short time later and handed his sorrowing father a glass of water. Father Doyle summed up the mood as a ‘very sad and lonely day for all of us’.
‘Veronica’s death is one of those events when a nation stops, when time stands still, when we look at ourselves as a society and ask: Where are we going? This time of questioning is a special moment in history. The frame is frozen. It is a time of change in Irish society, a time of decision and debate and thought. Where is Irish society headed? What forces are vying for power? What is the future of our country? And all of this prompted by the death of Veronica.’
She was buried the next morning in Dardistown Cemetery, a sacred ground adjacent to Dublin Airport. There was a short sermon in the church and Turley addressed those gathered in a moving tribute to his beloved wife. ‘The best day I ever had was 21 September 1985, the year myself and Veronica promised to love, cherish and honour each other “till death do us part”’. He spoke a few more words and walked to his seat. As he did so, the entire congregation stood and applauded.
Placed on her coffin were items which marked out her life. A football, a pair of Manchester United gloves and a programme from the FA Cup semi-final were there. Her cherished photograph of Eric Cantona, the Manchester United footballer, standing alongside her was there too. The picture showed a youthful and vibrant woman looking more like a schoolgirl posing alongside her favourite pop star. There were her national and international media awards and, of course, her wedding photograph. Before her casket was removed, her sister Claire read from the Book of Wisdom and recited the words: ‘Over wisdom, evil can never triumph.’
Turley, carrying his son in his arms, followed the coffin out of the church. Cathal carried a spray of lilies with a red rose in the centre. On the way out, the child wrapped his arms around Mary Robinson, the Irish President, hugging her like a friend. ‘He was very good,’ the
immensely proud father told the President whilst clutching his son’s tiny hand.
The two men in Guerin’s life stood at the side of her grave and kissed her coffin before she was finally laid to rest. Cathal stood on the side of the grave and knelt down to say a Hail Mary. His father crouched down beside him, holding his waist and fighting back the tears. When the child finished saying his prayer, he blew his murdered mother a kiss. ‘Goodbye Mummy.’
There was a sense of foreboding in Dardistown that day as the crowd departed from the cemetery; anger and rage filled the air. Nora Owen, like many others, felt it within. ‘I was vicious about these bastards who had done this, and you know my sense of effrontery, how dare they attack somebody like this, and really attack one of the organs of our democracy which was a free press. You kind of felt you wanted to get them by the throat and throttle them. They were not feelings I wanted to have. I knew I had the responsibility to make sure this never happened again.’
Who was responsible? Who had left a young man widowed and a young child motherless? What sort of person would do such a thing?
One man’s name was on everyone’s mind. John Gilligan.
Chapter 2
Life Cycles of Violence
‘John had an awful, terrible childhood.’
Geraldine Gilligan
The planets of war and conflict were clashing and colliding when John Joseph Gilligan entered the world. The orbital paths of Saturn and Neptune had crossed to the north-east of the skies, leaving Venus, Jupiter and Mercury in ascent, which in celestial terms destined anyone born on that day to a fiery and violent future.
Gilligan was born in Dublin on 29 March 1952 under the star sign of Aries, the masculine fire sign. It is said that Aries characters have many positive traits, of which passion and enthusiasm are two. But their negative tendencies are anarchistic, a quickness of temper and selfishness that makes them want to succeed, regardless of the consequences; another unique Aries trait is the deep distrust of authority.
The symbol of the ram, used to express the characteristics of Aries, is one of the New Age traditions. The symbol used in the Chinese lunar calendar is far more appropriate; Gilligan was born in the Year of the Dragon. Persons of this sign tend to intimidate those who cross them and, although colourful, are irrational by nature.
The story of John Gilligan began years earlier in the Dublin of the early 1940s. His father was a miscreant youth from Dublin’s north inner city who had a fondness for drink, gambling and getting into trouble with the law. ‘Johnno Gilligan’, like his father before him, who worked as an engineering smith on the Dublin docks and by night plied the trade of a petty criminal, found theft and crime more attractive than hard labour. Not that he was a professional criminal; he just stole when opportunity came his way, which was fairly frequently. Easy money could be made by robbing, and he subscribed to the belief that living life as a law-abiding citizen was a waste of time—in other words, crime paid.
Occasionally he did manage to earn an honest living by legitimate means. In 1944, at the age of 21, he started working as a bailer attendant at a factory in Dublin. As far as anyone knows, romance had not featured in his life until this time when a chance encounter brought him into contact with a girl called Sarah Teresa Howard. She was the pretty 20-year-old daughter of Henry Howard, a local CIÉ signalman.
What attracted her to Gilligan’s father was his manner. He was young and had wild ways about him; he did as he pleased and winked at so many girls that they believed him to have wealth far beyond him. Her blissful innocence and looks overwhelmed him. She was in the bloom of youth and would fall in love at the drop of a hat. The young couple started courting, much to the consternation of Henry Howard, who could see the inevitable life that lay ahead of his daughter should Johnno propose and she accept.
The young girl, however, did not think this way and agreed to marry her beau when he mustered up the courage to ask. There was nothing her father could do or say to dissuade his daughter. The Rev. Donald Quinnlivan married the couple on 5 August 1945 in the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel on the Mourne Road in Drimnagh, Dublin. The ceremony was a small and dignified affair attended by friends and neighbours; the groom’s brother, Thomas, was groomsman, while one of Sarah’s childhood friends, Veronica Sweeney, was bridesmaid. Johnno spoke with affection to his young bride, but Henry Howard did not need a fortune-teller to realise his daughter had made a mistake. He was in time proved right.
The newlyweds moved into a house on Galtymore Road, and for a time Johnno went straight, which seemed a miracle to anyone who knew him. But he was not a man who could go without a drink for long, and in the space of a few months, he had virtually destroyed his marriage through alcohol, gambling and squandering what little cash he had on failed racehorses.
Even when his young wife got pregnant it didn’t put a stop to his random visits to the bookmakers and local hostelries. He became even more intolerable, beating his wife and taking out his aggression on those around him. If he had no money, he would break into his neighbours’ homes or nearby shops where he would help himself to whatever he could sell in the local pubs. In this whirlwind of drunken violence, his young wife somehow managed to keep her life on track.
The prosperity of the post-Second World War years caused a labour boom in Dublin, particularly around the docklands where cargo ships laden with coal and oil created a demand for cheap labour. In part to be nearer this potentially lucrative source of employment and partly because of the constant trouble that Johnno Gilligan was causing around Ballyfermot, the couple moved north across the Liffey to 15 Prussia Street. Prussia Street was a rat-infested slum where neighbours shared a single toilet —hygiene and sanitation were luxuries the residents simply could not afford. It was here on the night of 29 March 1952, that Sarah gave birth to John Joseph, whom she named after his father.
In her lifetime, she would give birth to nine children—five girls and four boys. In those days, women traditionally gave up their jobs when they married; therefore she was reliant on her husband’s income, which in turn was reliant on crime. She was trapped in a vicious circle, deploring the source of her husband’s income whilst urging him to provide more for her young children.
The marriage entered into further difficulties, which threw Sarah into bouts of depression. At night Johnno would arrive home drunk, pass out in the kitchen and snore all night. His wife would leave him in his drunken stupor and be careful not to disturb him. Such were the problems in the Gilligan household that she did not even register John Gilligan’s birth until the following August—some five months later.
Dublin Corporation at the time were trying to clean out the city and had embarked on an ambitious project to build 10,000 houses in Ballyfermot where the people of the slums could live. Gilligan’s young mother needed no encouragement from her husband, but mustered up the courage to apply for one of the new homes under construction. Her husband took no interest in her plans, nor in his young family for that matter, so she signed all the tenancy paperwork herself, much to the bemusement of the corporation clerks. Sarah and her children, including her eight-month-old baby John, moved into 5 Lough Conn Road, Ballyfermot, on 6 December 1952.
Gilligan’s father went missing for the move, so the neighbours helped her move what few belongings she had to Ballyfermot. If her marriage was in difficulty before she took control, from this point onwards it got decidedly bleak, with her husband spending more and more time away from home. His gambling problem continued to intensify as he moved between jobs.
The turbulence in the Gilligan household had an immense effect on the young John Gilligan, although it did not manifest itself until early adulthood. He would later feel cheated of his youth and become obsessively protective of his own children.
Inside 5 Lough Conn Road, life was miserable, and as John Gilligan grew up, he did so at the mercy of his father’s whims. His f
ather would often arrive home and send him to the local bookmaker’s to place bets on horses doomed to lose. When the young Gilligan would return home with the inevitable bad news, he would be beaten black and blue. As was his mother. Despite Sarah’s best efforts, the family often went without dinner—though Johnno rarely went without a drink. In a home martyred by violence, the young John Gilligan found the calm and security he needed in school.
When the Gilligans first moved to Ballyfermot there wasn’t even a school, so the young Gilligan was shunted for lessons between the Louise Convent on the Drumfin Road, which was run by the Sisters of Charity, and Johnstown House run by the Christian Brothers.
In 1960, Mary Queen of Angels National School opened, encompassing Lough Conn Road in its catchment area. The school was run by the Catholic Church, which appointed Canon Troy, a brash cleric from Listowel in County Kerry, as manager, whilst Joe Doherty, a young teacher from Clontarf was appointed principal.
Gilligan’s home life did not affect his education to the degree that one might imagine. Gilligan, although not highly intelligent, was not slow to learn. He was an average child who interacted well with his fellow classmates and teachers and avoided trouble. Driven perhaps by the sheer turmoil of home life, Gilligan liked the time he spent in Mary Queen of Angels, where he received a good all-round education in maths, English and Irish. Daily life in Mary Queen of Angels was good for Gilligan.
Barrack Yard Drill (BYD) was one part of his education to which he applied himself with zeal. BYD was run by Mick O’Neill, a retired soldier who used to visit the school every week and put the children through their paces in the school playground, lining the students up and instructing them in a military-like way to touch their toes, stretch and stand to attention. O’Neill had a great rapport with the young Gilligan and his classmates, who rewarded him by throwing pennies into his hat.
