Minute's silence to mark anniversary of Guerin's killing

The 10th anniversary of the cold-blooded killing of journalist Veronica Guerin will be marked tomorrow with a minute’s silence.

The mother of one was gunned on the outskirts of Dublin after mounting a high-profile war against Ireland’s drug barons in a national newspaper.

As she sat in her car at a traffic light near Newland’s Cross on the Naas Road, she was shot by a pillion passenger on a motorbike.

A minute’s silence is expected to be held at the site at 7.30pm tomorrow night.

A journalist with the Sunday Independent, Ms Guerin was one of the country’s leading crime reporters when she was killed.

The criminal investigation was one of the largest in the history of the state and led to over 150 arrests.

Brian Meehan was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Paul Ward was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison in November 1998 but this conviction was later overturned on appeal.

Drugs baron John Gilligan was extradited from England in February 2000. He was tried and acquitted of her murder but convicted of importing cannabis and sentenced to 28 years in prison, which was reduced to 20 years on appeal.

The man named in court as having shot dead Veronica Guerin, Patrick ’Dutchy’ Holland, reiterated his denial after being released from a prison sentence for a drugs conviction in April.

The killing was the first assassination of a reporter in the Republic and sparked shock and anger among colleagues, the public and gardai vowed to track down her killers.

Then Taoiseach John Bruton called the murder “an attack on democracy” and the Dail marked it with a minute’s silence.

In a joint statement, newspaper editors in Ireland and Britain branded the assassination “a fundamental attack on the free press“.

A bursary was last week launched in memory of the murdered journalist by Independent Newspapers. The Veronica Guerin Memorial Bursary will support the education of new journalists at Dublin City, where Ms Guerin served as a member of the governing body from 1982 to 1992.

The journalist’s life has also inspired the making of two films, When the Sky Falls in 2000, starring Joan Allen, and Veronica Guerin in 2003, which starred Cate Blanchett.