When John Gilligan was released from prison in September 1993, having served three years for receiving stolen goods, he embarked on a career change that would have major implications for the future of organised crime in Ireland.
he 41-year-old Ballyfermot gangster’s grand plan was to swap robbery for the much more lucrative drug trade.
He also vowed to never serve another day in prison.
Less than three years later, his determination to achieve those dual aspirations had earned him infamy.
His ambitions to be the country’s most powerful drug baron – while simultaneously owning one of Europe’s largest equestrian centres – collapsed when he ordered the murder of crusading journalist Veronica Guerin and galvanised an entire nation in the process.
Within 24 hours of the journalist’s murder on this day 25 years ago, a wall of flowers built up outside the gates of Leinster House, symbolising unprecedented public shock, anger and revulsion.
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Coming only a few weeks after the IRA murder of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe in Limerick, it represented the equivalent of a criminal coup that sent a shudder of fear through the entire establishment.
Gilligan had effectively issued a stark warning to gardaí, politicians, judges, media and anyone who could interfere with organised crime that they could be a target.
But within four weeks of the murder, the Dáil made history by passing what was described as “the most wide-ranging proposals for change in Irish criminal law and procedure since the foundation of the State”.
Hubris and greed ultimately cost Gilligan his drug empire, his equestrian centre and almost 20 years of his liberty.
His story provides a chilling example of how the scourge of organised crime was allowed to thrive in the shadows as gardaí focused on the terrorist threat posed by the Provisional IRA.
Gilligan’s sense of untouchability was inspired by his old friend Martin Cahill, the General, who had got away with blowing up the state forensic scientist, shooting a social welfare inspector and stealing the DPP’s most sensitive files.
If such blatant attacks on the legitimacy of the State could go unpunished, murdering a journalist was merely pushing out the parameters a little bit further.
Gilligan was born on March 29, 1952, the fifth of 11 children of Sally and John Gilligan from the north inner city.
He inherited his violent nature from his father, a wife-beating alcoholic, gambler and petty thief who worked as a seaman with the B&I Line, the long-since defunct state-owned passenger ferry and freight company.
John Jr joined his father at sea when he was 14. It was the only legitimate job he ever had and it helped launch him into a life of crime.
Gilligan’s first recorded conviction came at the age of 15, but was rather unremarkable. He was caught stealing a farmer’s chickens in Rathfarnham but was let off with a warning.
The start of his criminal career coincided with the spiral in armed crime on the back of the Troubles in the North.
He exemplified the new breed of young criminals who transitioned from being burglars and petty thieves to armed robbers.
Among his early associates were John ‘The Coach’ Traynor and George ‘The Penguin’ Mitchell, who is now one of the Europe’s biggest drug traffickers.
Gilligan found a niche in robbing containers rolling off the ferries in Dublin Port. He made a fortune selling stolen goods in the working-class estates where punters appreciated a bargain and did not ask questions.
He later began hitting large warehouses and factories. Very soon he was dubbed Factory John by criminals and gardaí alike.
The Factory Gang stole anything that could be sold on the black market.
The astonishing “shopping list” included cattle drench, hardware goods, double-glazed windows, pharmaceuticals, clothes, lingerie, chocolates, household foodstuffs, alcohol, cigarettes, computer games, TVs, videos and music systems.
By 1987, the gang was classified as being one of the top three mobs operating in the Republic, behind the General and next to the Monk.
Of that time he would later brag: “It was great fun and I got a buzz out of it. Sometimes we got stuff and other times nothing. We were chased by the cops now and again and we had plenty of near misses. There were a lot of times when we were in and out of a place and no one knew a thing for ages afterwards.
“The strokes [crimes] were a win-win situation for everyone. The victims, the owners of the truck or the factory, got the insurance money, the driver or security man got a few bob and so did me and the lads. It was the perfect crime and doing no harm to anyone.”
But fear and violence were always Gilligan’s preferred tools of the trade. During the 1980s, the gardaí and the DPP were forced to drop at least 15 criminal charges against him because witnesses were too terrified to testify against him.
On one such occasion a witness arrived in court on the morning of Gilligan’s trial. He was pale and trembling.
“I met John Gilligan last night and he stuck a shotgun in my ear and told me if I give evidence I am a f***ing dead man,” he told detectives.
But Gilligan eventually ran out of road in 1990 when he went on trial for receiving stolen goods before the non-jury Special Criminal Court on the grounds that he had intimidated jurors in the past.
He was convicted and sentenced to four years in Portlaoise Prison.
While Gilligan was inside, there was a paradigm shift in organised crime as former robbers moved into the drug trade.
He was one of the first of his criminal generation to realise the true financial potential of the cannabis trade for which there was a much wider demand than heroin.
Within months of his release, Gilligan and Traynor developed a highly-organised industrial-scale operation that ran like clockwork and turned over millions of pounds. They employed a small army of workers and gangsters to run the business.
He pumped drug money into his vanity project, Jessbrook Equestrian Centre near Enfield, Co Meath, which he and his wife Geraldine planned to make one of Europe’s biggest indoor equestrian arenas.
Despite being officially unemployed, Gilligan could apparently do what he liked – and he certainly did.
When he began buying up pockets of land to expand Jessbrook, people were first offered wads of cash in shoe boxes to sign over their property. Those who refused were beaten and threatened.
Such was the level of fear Gilligan instilled that gardaí could not convince any of his victims to give evidence against him. In a time before the Criminal Assets Bureau, the authorities were also powerless to investigate Gilligan’s unexplained wealth.
When the tax authorities attempted to investigate his financial affairs, Gilligan told them to “f*** off” and they never returned.
He also threatened welfare inspectors when they began an enquiry into his children’s receipt of state handouts. They left him alone after that. And that was when Veronica came into the crosshairs.
One day in September 1995, she called to Gilligan’s ranch armed only with one question: if he was on the dole, where did he get all the money?
Incandescent with rage at the journalist’s temerity, Gilligan launched a savage attack on Veronica and later threatened to kill her and her family.
But the journalist was prepared to stand up to the bully. Gilligan was charged with assault and was facing definite jail time, but he was determined that would not happen.
The rest is history. And the story is not over as today he awaits trial on drugs charges in Spain.
