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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 father 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