Free Gangster by John Mooney Page A

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