by John Mooney
High-profile prisoners serving sentences usually avoid each other in prison to lessen confrontations. Portlaoise Prison, however, forced some of the State’s most hardened adversaries to talk.
‘You had 40 top-profile prisoners confined in a small space that couldn’t break out, control, subvert or bully anyone. You had the most unruly criminals in the State, and republicans keeping them in line. Did they run amuck?’ Kenna asked rhetorically.
True to form, most of the criminals on E1 did keep to themselves. Some of the younger, more impressionable ones looked up to Gilligan. He would talk to them as if he were their father, defend them when necessary and help them out. They would eat breakfast, lunch and tea in his company and follow him around the exercise yard.
One of Gilligan’s devotees was Brian Meehan, who was a protégé of Martin Cahill, the gangland criminal known as the General. Cahill had recruited Meehan as a youth and turned him into a highly skilled getaway driver. Meehan had a number of dysfunctional character flaws and no sense of family values. As a boy, he lived with his parents on Stanaway Road in Crumlin, but hung around the run-down, drug-infested Fatima Mansions complex. With 15 convictions under his belt, he was serving time in Portlaoise for his role in an armed raid on the Allied Irish Bank on Grafton Street in central Dublin. He and Paul ‘Hippo’ Ward, a miscreant youth who grew up in Windmill Park in Crumlin, would discuss crime with Gilligan in his cell, sometimes for hours.
Gilligan never said much, recalled George Royal, one former inmate. ‘They would all be sitting in the cell. Meehan would be the loudmouth, going on about how one fella he knew was making thousands selling drugs. They’d be all looking at each other saying, “How can he be making that much from selling dope?” They would say, “Sure he’s a fucking eejit. If he can do it, so can we. Think how much we could make, with the backup we have.”
‘This was all talk with Meehan, but Gilligan would sit there and listen. He never said a word, he just listened, but was taking everything in. Make no doubt about it, that’s where it all started,’ said Royal.
Not everything about prison life proved positive for Gilligan. Contrary to what he would have everyone believe, he was deeply insecure with regards to his personal life. Fear of losing his wife perturbed him greatly: he lamented that he was not with his wife and at home to see his two children through the turbulent teenage years. He felt ill at ease about his marriage, often convincing himself that she would leave him for another man or simply seek a separation or marriage annulment, although this seemed only a potential reality to him. It fuelled an intense hatred of prison, and this festered in his psyche. It played on his mind, annoyed him and thwarted whatever sense of logic he possessed. A desire for release absorbed his energies and consumed his mind.
By the summer of 1992 this craving for freedom began to eat away at him. He missed his wife and the home they shared. He would write long letters to her, exposing his innermost secrets in the full knowledge that the prison authorities would see his softer side. One of the letters showed the tender side of their relationship.
Portlaoise Prison,
Dublin Road,
Portlaoise,
Co. Laois
10 August ´92
Dear Geraldine,
Just a line or two to say I love you so very, very much and that you looked so beautiful today, your [sic] lovely. I’m so proud to be your husband and best friend so I am. Ger I really had a nice day. I hope it was half as good for you. I will find out tomorrow when I am going up to Dublin and then let you know on the phone this week or the weekend ok. Geraldine tell Darren I said thanks for been [sic] so good, so good for you, he is a good son thank God.
Well honey I can’t wait to get Christmas over with its less than 20 weeks away and as soon as its [sic] over with we will be only counting the months that I have left (agree) ok but for now lets take it at a week at a time agree.
Geraldine I know I ask you to do a lot for me but as you know I would do the same for you. Geraldine I think this letter is after going from a love one to a do this or do that (agree). I’m sorry love its [sic] just I want things to go right for you as you could do with the money They all owe me ok love.
Geraldine do you still love me I know I know its hard. I’m just lovesick. Sure head I would die for you, I love you that much. Geraldine I will say good night and god bless you, you’re my dream come true so you my love are.
From your loving tea maker HA. HA.
All my love your
Husband and best Friend, I love You Billions
Love John
XXXXX
Inside the prison environs, when not absorbed in dreams and private thoughts, Gilligan was an al-together different man. He made unreasonable demands on the prison service. He turned into a difficult person; in essence a problematic prisoner. This irrational behaviour continued unabated and culminated in his attacking Tom Dormer, the Chief Prison Officer in charge of E1, on 22 October 1992. Gilligan had requested that the prison authorities supply him with copies of confidential records he wanted to give to his wife. He knew he was not entitled to prison files but had made the request anyway. At 4 p.m. Dormer approached him on the prison landing to tell him his request had been denied. When he turned his back on Gilligan, the prisoner lashed out, punching him from behind. The blow loosened Dormer’s teeth and left his jaw bruised. The prison authorities transferred Gilligan to Cork Prison immediately. He was held there in solitary confinement for the next two months without privileges.
The gardaí were called in to investigate and took a statement from Dormer and another warden who witnessed the attack. Gilligan declined to make any comment to the police.
Solitary confinement affected him deeply. Solitude broke him and he became dispirited, unhygienic, dirty and lacking in any self-respect. Realising that he was slipping into a depression, Geraldine travelled to him. She urged him to do something about his situation, to take redress through the courts.
Her endeavours prompted him to take an appeal to the High Court seeking his return to Portlaoise. It was here that Gilligan first met Donal Ó Siodhacháin and Pat Herron from Paralegal and Technical Services (PATS). Ó Siodhacháin was a former member of the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle and the Provisional IRA. He met Herron, whom he describes as a fiery redhead, whilst seeking help for a complex legal case, and the two went on to set up PATS in 1985. Neither were solicitors, but both had a good understanding of the courts system and judicial process.
‘We’d prepare briefing documents for solicitors and help people fight cases against the Garda, ESB, corporation and the like,’ said Ó Siodhacháin.
The meeting with Gilligan was purely accidental. ‘He was in the High Court and had just made an application to the judge, but he wasn’t able to get across what he wanted. He was in very bad shape physically. He was being held in Cork in solitary confinement. He looked shell-shocked, he wasn’t wearing any stockings in his shoes,’ remembered Ó Siodhacháin.
The judge delayed hearing Gilligan’s application, so he took a seat at the back of the courtroom where Ó Siodhacháin was sitting. ‘He was anything but the figure he was made out to be later. The prisoner officer handcuffed to him dozed off to sleep, and I passed a card under his nose. I’d written on the back of it, “Apply for a two-week adjournment, ask for legal aid under the Attorney Generals Act and do you want our help?”’
Gilligan did not know what to make of him but nodded to all three. Ó Siodhacháin pointed to his red-haired companion, Herron, who visited him the following day. Ó Siodhacháin was dubious about Gilligan, having no idea about his background and his story. Because of these fears, which he kept to himself, he arranged to meet Geraldine.
‘We asked about their income. They were living in Blanchardstown, and she produced photographs of the land in Kildare with a few buildings on it. This was long before they built Jessbrook. She had p
hotos of it, and it looked run-down and grotty. In fact, it was so bad at that stage that when she tried to get some grant to upgrade the stable, it was condemned as being not fit to keep horses in it,’ recalled Ó Siodhacháin.
Unknown to them, they were dealing with a man who was a serious criminal. They put a briefing document together for Gilligan to approach a solicitor. ‘We had no idea he was such a heavyweight criminal.’
By this stage, Gilligan had been charged with common assault in Portlaoise District Court on 5 February 1993 and was convicted. He was sentenced to six months in jail, which was subsumed into his sentence. But he was still being held in Cork Prison.
Ó Siodhacháin soon realised that his best intentions were being lost on Gilligan. Having succeeded in being removed from solitary confinement, Gilligan pulled a stunt.
‘We prepared the legal papers for him and he got a further adjournment. Our mistake was to include a judicial review. When he saw how it was done, he photocopied the papers and started passing them around to other cronies, and they all went applying for judicial reviews, and he was put back in solitary confinement.’
It was Geraldine who approached them once again begging for help, prompting Ó Siodhacháin to take action again. ‘On the information she gave me, I went before a judge in the High Court and was granted a habeas corpus application. I gave notice to the Governor of Cork Prison to bring him before a court within 24 hours.’
In spite of his efforts, Gilligan would not listen to their advice—in short Ó Siodhacháin believed he was a liar and would cut a deal behind their backs, or anyone else’s for that matter.
‘In our experience of dealing with criminals, they would sell out their own mother, so I asked Geraldine out straight, would he deal straight and would she deal straight? She said she would, but that he would cut a deal. So once I knew he would do this I pulled away.’
Ó Siodhacháin would later get the occasional call from Geraldine to say thanks. ‘My recollection of Geraldine at that time and afterwards was that she was fed up with criminality and the situation. This was going to be the last time she stood by him and that she was going out on her own. They were separating, that was it,’ he recounted.
‘That’s what she said from day one to me. That she wanted to get on with her life and develop this place in Kildare to do a bit of a riding school, bring people out from the city. I think she believed she could make a go of it financially. I had no reason to disbelieve her. She displayed none of the trappings of wealth. We were doing this on a voluntary basis, we had no reason to disbelieve them.’
Gilligan was eventually returned to Portlaoise Prison. He had lodged an appeal against the assault conviction by sending a letter written in his own illegible handwriting, but he later withdrew it. He settled back into prison life, even managing to get temporary release in the run-up to his release date. He was permanently released from Portlaoise Prison on 15 November 1993, having served just three years of a four-year sentence.
He emerged a professional criminal with a master plan and the determination to carry it out. Whatever crimes he had committed in the past were about to pale into insignificance. He learned a great deal in Portlaoise. He learned much from his fellow inmates. He learned the essentials of crime: how to run an efficient criminal organisation using a cell-structured system, how to intimidate—and most importantly of all he had the bones of a new gang, a young and improved version of the warehouse gang. Its members respected him, regarded him as a father figure and could be trusted. But most importantly of all, and most staggeringly, they looked upon him as the boss. He didn’t have to soften his tone around them; they were willing to follow his instructions without question.
In criminal terms, Gilligan was now light years ahead of his contemporaries and was about to show society just how far he’d travelled. Perhaps the best indication of this could be seen in the video made of the soccer tournament played in 1991 that featured Gilligan’s narration. It later became something of a tradition for inmates to receive a duplicate video on their release as a keepsake. The prisoners who edited it could have been successful in many occupations but not as video editors. They overdubbed the soccer matches with music and in naming the players gave them nicknames like Dessie ‘The Fox’—unsuitable names for undesirable characters. Only one was appropriate because of its foreboding nature. They called Gilligan Mr Big.
Much of what follows is based on evidence presented to the Special Criminal Court in the trials of Brian Meehan, Patrick Holland and John Gilligan.
Chapter 6
A Whirlwind of Crime
‘No one even knew it was happening.’
a Detective speaking about the Meteoric Rise of GILLIGAN’s Gang
Having spent over three years in jail, Gilligan wasted no time getting back into crime, creating the illusion that he was still someone to be reckoned with. The truth, however, was far removed from what he had people believe. He was cash starved. He no longer had surplus funds, hidden stashes of hard cash or stolen property to sell. Not since his childhood had he been so vulnerable. With no money and a lengthy criminal record under his belt, his future looked bleak. He and his family were poor and they had no future.
The warehouse gang was now a defunct gang of ex-convicts, incapable of carrying out the spectacular heists of previous years. The fearsome reputation afforded to Gilligan in the ’80s was all but a distant memory. Crime had changed. Companies took security seriously. They installed systems that were not easily bypassed. Drugs, contraband, computer chips and arms, rather than stolen washing machines and tools, were the new currencies of the black market. A new generation of hoodlum had arrived, and they did not yield to the threat of violence; they readily embraced it. Armed confrontation was their first resort.
Nevertheless, Gilligan was clear-sighted about his situation. He wanted back into crime. He knew drug trafficking was the gateway to certain riches and he wanted his slice of the burgeoning market. Listening to Meehan and his tales of the wealth that narcotics could provide had convinced him of that. But he had three obstacles: lack of cash, muscle and a partner.
John Traynor was one of Dublin’s most celebrated criminals. Gilligan had known Traynor since his youth when the latter worked for Irish Shipping, later getting involved in the Seaman’s Union whilst Gilligan was at sea. Traynor, in Gilligan’s view, was a militant criminal and had the trophies to prove it. For a start he was wealthy. He was also a man who could be relied upon because of his impeccable criminal credentials. The Coach, as he was sometimes called, had been in trouble with the law all his life. He was first charged for housebreaking at nine years of age and he went on to amass over a dozen convictions, ranging from housebreaking to possession of firearms and ammunition in the following years. He was a portly looking man who maintained many mistresses whilst supporting a wife and family. He could socialise with anyone from the petty thief to the banking executive. With his middle-class accent, large frame and casual appearance, he could carry off elaborate deceptions. Duplicity was an art form at which he excelled.
His most glorious moment as far as Gilligan was concerned had come years earlier when he relieved the Revenue Commissioners of close to IR£1 million. Traynor had recruited an insider who stole confidential lists containing the names and addresses of people due to receive tax rebates. His magic trick was simply to change the address of the payee to the address of his laundry on Aungier Street. No sooner would the cheque arrive than it would be endorsed and cashed at another location—a pub, shop or bank. When the gardaí finally caught up with him he responded by issuing threats.
Detective Garda Dominic Hearns, who investigated the crime, named him as being the brains behind the scam in a subsequent court case. ‘Traynor is a major fraud criminal known to travel the world and is away at present,’ he said. That he was named in court was bad enough, but when his name appeared in the following morning’s news
papers, Traynor’s impulsive nature prompted him to call Hearns directly and issue threats. He was in hospital at the time and made the call from his bed, specifying that he would kill the policeman if he should ever mention his name again.
Gilligan approved of such recourse. He saw in Traynor a viciousness coupled with respectability. Of course, what Gilligan could not see was his dual personae—that of the informer, a criminal willing to negotiate his way out of anything. This was the secret side to Traynor.
In 1992, he was asked by Scotland Yard and the gardaí to ‘assist’ with their inquiries into the theft of art from Russborough House in Wicklow. Martin Cahill, the criminal forever known as the General, had stolen the paintings.
The Coach was just two years into a seven-year sentence imposed for handling when he was mysteriously granted a weekend pass from prison. Once released, he quickly made his way to Dublin. The gardaí soon began locating the stolen paintings. Traynor was also instrumental in securing the safe return of some 145 files stolen from the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions, files of a highly sensitive nature that Cahill had also stolen. These were ‘found’ in a disused launderette in Arbour Hill in Dublin.
All this was lost on Gilligan, although he was certainly aware of Traynor’s unusual sexual habits. The Coach engaged in several relationships with prostitutes. The affairs were not simply of a sexual nature; they were perverse. His girlfriends worked in brothels where they offered a variety of sexual services to clients, whom Traynor secretly filmed. He told friends the films were for blackmail purposes, but anyone familiar with his private life knew they were for his own gratification. ‘He always had prostitutes around him. I don’t think he was gay, but I think he got blowjobs from fellas in prison,’ Gilligan would later remark.
