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detectives could not believe their luck—here was Gilligan himself handling stolen goods. Once Gilligan was inside, the gardaí moved in just as the two began unloading boxes of vacuums from the truck used in the heist.
    ‘Armed Garda. Don’t move,’ shouted one officer. The two criminals put their hands up in the air before being handcuffed and driven away to be charged with offences including the robbery of the vacuums and the theft of the trucks found in the warehouse. The vehicles alone were valued at IR£45,000, whilst the vacuum cleaner consignment found in Unit 22 was worth IR£54,000, making the charges extremely serious. Gilligan and Weafer were charged before the Dublin District Court.
    The case came up for hearing over two years later in March 1988 in the Circuit Criminal Court before Judge Gerard Buchanan. Gilligan’s future looked bleak. He would certainly be convicted and sentenced. In his opening address to the jury, prosecuting counsel Erwin Mill Arden, BL, said the evidence before the court would link all the items with the accused and the vacuum cleaners. The accused, he said, was not charged with the theft of any of the items but with receiving them knowing them to have been stolen.
    The court heard evidence of how Gilligan’s fingerprints had been found on a can of paint that had been used in one of the stolen vehicles found in Unit 22. Detective Inspector John Anders of Tallaght Garda Station also gave evidence of finding Gilligan and Weafer unloading cartons containing the stolen vacuums from a lorry. Gilligan, he said, had thrown away a key before he was arrested under the Offences Against the State Act. The key fitted the padlock on the unit’s small door, which Gilligan had been seen opening. The inspector went on to say a search order had been obtained under the Offences Against the State Act because it was suspected that a firearm or firearms used in the raid in which the vacuum cleaners were stolen might be found. The prosecution’s case appeared to be going according to plan until day two when the receiving charge was withdrawn after legal issues were raised about ownership of the vacuums. The delivery docket for the vacuum cleaners apparently hadn’t been signed; hence ownership of the vacuums couldn’t be established. It was a legal technicality.
    Gilligan couldn’t believe his luck; this was too good to be true. But he still faced charges of receiving three vehicles and a hydraulic tailgate found in Unit 22. These charges were eventually withdrawn, as were all the charges connected with the case.
    But the gardaí kept up the pressure.

    Immediately after his arrest on the Nilfisk charges, Gilligan and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang went back to business, stealing and robbing. The fear of prison, however, had made him all the more haphazard; believing himself to be destined for jail in any case, he developed a lax attitude to security, which proved to be his downfall. It was not long before he slipped up. Gilligan temporarily stopped carrying out raids down the country, for if he were to be arrested while on bail for the Nilfisk heist he would certainly be held on remand. But his familiarity with the factories of Robinhood Industrial Estate eased him into a false sense of safety. Having spent hundreds of hours prowling around the industrial estates in the mid-night hours, he had managed to convince himself he was untouchable once he stayed in Dublin. He deluded himself into believing the gardaí could never catch him, that he was too clever, that he could outwit them. He believed they had got lucky with Weafer, but that the rest of his team was solid and trustworthy. The gardaí would never get that close again, or so he believed.

    It was approaching Easter, April 1987, when Gilligan decided to rob the Rose Confectionery premises at 23A Robinhood Industrial Estate. He assembled two of his most trusted lieutenants, and they broke into the factory on Good Friday, 17 April. It was meant to be