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Chapter 1: What led to Veronica Guerin's murder on the Naas Road?
Gaelic was still very popular in Ireland at the time. There was a visitation zone called Aspug's Sweetman. It was built in the 16th century. And that was the beginning of the Irish culture in Ireland. In the time of the Sharmoneys, people were Irish or Irish-speaking. And the Sharmoneys weren't allowed to speak Gaelic because they didn't know what to do.
They didn't have anything to do with it. The End of Gaelic
Hey there, we are Indosport. With me, John Molloy, we cover sport and we have things like this.
I was kind of blunt. Well, yeah, world's not fair. You have stage four cancer. Oh, well, world's not fair. But sometimes I think that bluntness helps me. And like me and Tommy have a terrible sense of humour. I think it's really hard for people who don't know us very well because sometimes we throw out something really, really dark and people are like, Jesus, Ciara.
They haven't been around me on this process long enough just yet for me to throw out a little bit of that. But me and Tommy find our ways to cope.
This is an Irish Independent Podcast.
Previously on Veronica, murdered in search of the truth.
He was untouchable. And that was why Veronica, in the September of 1995, went out and asked him the one question, where did you get your money from, John? It was a legitimate question. And he wasn't going to answer it.
I don't believe for one moment she thought that it would have got any worse than the shooting at her home when she was shot in the leg.
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Chapter 2: How did journalists react to the news of Veronica's murder?
At 12.54pm, Veronica made her last phone call.
Veronica's on the phone and she's pulled up and she's on the phone to a guard, a friend of hers, and she says something like, I got off. And then you hear a bang. And it's followed by more bangs. And that's the moment that Dutchie Holland smashed in the window, very professionally. He was in a .357 Magnum, and he fired into Veronica at point-blank range.
And the moment he fired into her, it was recorded on the phone. He got on the bike. They went to a house which was owned by one of the other one of their associates in Crumlin. They were waiting for them there. The bike was parked offside. Another member later took it and dumped it in the Liffey.
And Dutchie went in, washed his hands, he went off, he got a lift down the road to Crumnagh Village, got on the bus and went home. That was the murder of Veronica Gearn.
For Jimmy, that day is all too clear. I can even see still as you're talking, you can visualise all that in front of you, can't you?
Oh, very clearly. Very clearly. It's a trauma you have to live with. It is. And remember why Veronica took the risk and remember why people do what they do. It's a trauma that so many people have to live with. The circumstances may be different. I mean, I remember bringing Mam into town and a few years afterwards and driving down by the Clester Church.
And there was a funeral of a drug dealer's daughter who had taken her life some days previous in Temple Bar. And as I told my mother who it was, she said, just remember that girl's mother is suffering just as I suffered. Her mother's pain is no different to mine.
And yet at the same time, while your family is now trying to come to terms with this tragedy, this news story is huge. Do you walk into a shop the following morning and see all those newspapers?
Yes, I actually remember going for breakfast the following morning. Luana and myself went for breakfast with the boys. And I remember people looking. And I remember thinking, well, you know, they're looking because they heard. But did I realize the impact? I think before... the funeral, we would have come to fully realize the impact.
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Chapter 3: What was the immediate impact of Veronica's death on Irish society?
She was arrested by the Gardaí. The young woman Mary is referring to is Carol Rooney. She was just 18 when she met Gilligan in 1995 at a Bucky's where she worked. She made statements and she was able to tell that story of Gilligan in a hotel room in Amsterdam, literally cock-a-hoop. The guards believed and she didn't ultimately give evidence, but she did confirm.
She was there and she heard a lot of these phone calls that super grasses were talking about from the other side. Yeah. So she could have been a corroboration, but she was intimidated. She didn't give evidence. And the other witness that was due to be called, who would have given its believed key testimony as well, was a Dutch man called Martin Baltus.
And he was, it's claimed, Gilligan's point man in Holland in relation to the sourcing of drugs, the arrangement of the shipments, the deliveries of the shipments and all of that sort of thing. It's also claimed he didn't give evidence, even though he was scheduled to do so, because his daughter had been the victim first. of a kidnapping and intimidation. And he just said, not doing this.
After almost five years, the investigation into Veronica Guerin's death had come to a close. But the verdict wasn't what most people had hoped for. The three judges expressed suspicions around the trustworthiness of Supergrass's Charlie Bowden and Russell Warren.
At the end of the day, the three judges, I think Dermot O'Donovan was the presiding judge in the three-judge court, they couldn't convict him of murder. They couldn't layer that evidence enough to convict him of murder. They couldn't convict him on the firearms offences, but they could convict him of the drugs offences.
John Gilligan had gotten away with murder, but the empire he had built was exposed for all to see. While sentencing him to 28 years in prison, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Dermot O'Donovan, made it clear that this was one of the most significant cases to ever come before his court. He said John Gilligan had presided over an avalanche of drugs in Ireland.
And he said, never in the history of Irish criminal jurisprudence has one person been presumed to have caused so much wretchedness to so many, a hemorrhage of harm. that is unlikely to heal in a generation. And I think that's quite prescient when you look at what's happened with drugs in this country and with criminal drug gangs in the years that followed.
You'd like to think that when he got 28 years that it made him pause for thought and made him think about the empire that he'd constructed and the crimes that he had been accused of. The one person missing from all of this is John Traynor.
Traynor slipped through the net, left Ireland. He ended up in the UK, keeping his head down. He was never charged. I always had suspicions about it, but I don't believe that he ever did a deal with the guards. And the reason I don't believe he did a deal with the guards was because there was nobody going to do a deal with these fuckers.
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Chapter 4: How did the investigation into Veronica's murder unfold?
They're too precious to share with anyone because as soon as you share them, they're no longer mine. Jimmy, thank you. Thank you.
Bye.
I'm Kevin Doyle, and this IndoDaily documentary series was produced by Philip Cowman and Ian Doyle, with sound design by John Smith. Archived clips were from RTE and the Irish Independent. We want to earn your trust and are members of the Trust Project, so you can see our ethics policies at independent.ie forward slash rjournalism.
And if you enjoy the IndoDaily, don't forget to follow and leave us a review. John Gilligan was never convicted of Veronica Gearan's murder, and to this day, he denies his involvement.
Hi, I'm Kasper van Kooten, actor. And in the podcast Kasper Speekt Af, you'll hear everything about all my dates. With a lot of nice women. When they saw me. And did they react? No, not really. Also a feeling of excitement? No, no, no. Please. With only rancidity. Good plan. And a dream. If you're ever free, you can always email me.
So if I don't do anything here now, I'm going to attract another partner who is not available. This is the podcast Kasper Speekt Af. On all your favorite podcast apps.
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