Former Clare hurler Niall Gilligan 'lost it' and hit boy, 12, 'multiple times' with stick, court told

Judge Francis Comerford will give his charge to the jury on Tuesday

Ennis Circuit Court heard on Monday that Mr Gilligan 'lost control' on October 5, 2023, when he punished the boy for the damage being caused at the time to his Jamaica Inn hostel property in Sixmilebridge.

Former All-Star and Clare All-Ireland winning hurler, Niall Gilligan “lost it” when he hit a then 12-year-old child “multiple times” with a stick, according to counsel for the State, Sarah Jane Comerford BL.

Ms Comerford told a jury at Ennis Circuit Court on Monday that Mr Gilligan “lost control” on October 5, 2023, when he punished the boy for the damage being caused at the time to his Jamaica Inn hostel property in Sixmilebridge.

Ms Comerford was making her closing speech in the case where Mr Gilligan, aged 48 of Rossroe, Kilmurry, Sixmilebridge, denies the assault causing harm with a stick of the boy at the Jamaica Inn hostel, Sixmilebridge on October 5, 2023.

Defence closing speech

In his own closing speech, counsel for Mr Gilligan, Patrick Whyms BL said in no way is Mr Gilligan trying to suggest that he was entitled to punish the boy as was suggested and said that the injuries sustained by the boy “are clearly regrettable”.

Mr Whyms said that on the evening at the Jamaica Inn hostel, Mr Gilligan “didn’t know that he was dealing with a child and did not create this situation”. He said that Mr Gilligan "was at the end of his tether" by the vandalism being done to a vacant property he was trying to sell.

Putting forward the defence of reasonable force against the charge of assault causing harm, Mr Whyms said that Mr Gilligan was at the Jamaica Inn hostel on the night of October 5 “in the dark and believed that he was under siege”.

He said: “Believing himself under threat and needing to protect himself and his property, Niall Gilligan needs to make an instant decision and so we are here."

Mr Whyms, instructed by solicitor, Daragh Hassett, said: “And Mr Gilligan, a family man who has young children and no previous convictions gives a clear story which hasn’t changed and an entirely credible, fulsome account of what happened."

“Did Niall Gilligan use such force as was reasonable in the circumstances as he believed them to be and if he did then no offence was committed.” 

In his prepared statement at Shannon Garda Station in February 2024 on the alleged assault, Mr Whyms said that Mr Gilligan “has given a perfectly plausible account in an otherwise impeccably accurate description of what occurred which placed the boys inside the building when he met them”.

On the medical evidence, Mr Whyms said: “Nobody wants to see a child being injured and it would be much better if that didn’t happen and the boy was injured in this case. 

There doesn’t seem to be much room for argument that he was injured from the actions of Niall Gilligan.

Mr Whyms said that a displaced fracture of a finger on the boy’s left hand “is the only fracture in this case”. He said “There was mention of dislocated shoulders, broken tibias and broken wrists all over the evidence but none of those things happened."

“There is an undisplaced fracture of a finger - that is not a good thing to happen but that it is what happened. There were injuries and these were sustained in the incident but by and large, most were cleared up in the week and the last one was pretty well cleared up in two weeks."

Mr Whyms said that the injuries “don’t look nice on the photographs - there is no getting away from that and injuries that are photographed immediately after don’t look nice”.

Prosecution closing speech

Earlier in her closing speech Ms Comerford, instructed by State Solicitor for Clare, Aisling Casey, told the jury: “This is a story of a man who lost his cool.” 

She said: “Instead of picking up the boy after he slipped and bringing him out to his car and driving him home and telling his parents, he hit him and lost it and he was angry and frustrated.” 

Ms Comerford said that the alleged assault in broad daylight “is the action of a man who took out his anger and frustration on a child. There is no evidence that his injuries were caused by anything other than his interactions with Niall Gilligan.” 

She said that Niall Gilligan “lost control and punished the boy for the damage and inconvenience caused to his property on a morning when he had to clean up human faeces and urine from his property”.

Ms Comerford said that the evidence of the then 12-year-old boy and his friend “is credible and can be relied upon to the high standard beyond reasonable doubt”.

She said that the boy “of course he knew that it's not okay to explore a building without permission, to let off fire extinguishers, to remove keys so he would have access to the building again, but he was a 12-year-old child and he was exploring and knew that others had been there before”.

Ms Comerford said that the boy "thought Niall Gilligan would threaten him with a stick. He didn’t think he was actually going to hit him, but he did and he kept hitting him”.

She told the jury: “I would suggest to you that the boy was shocked and in disbelief that this could happen - that a grown man would hit a child and not once and not a clip around the ear and a kick up the backside followed by a drive home to tell his parents to say what the child had been up to.”

Ms Comerford said that the boy knew that Mr Gilligan “was a big strong man who he never thought would viciously assault him. You will recall him saying ‘he was so big and I was so little’ and Mr Gilligan was so big and the boy was so little.”

Highlighting the medical evidence, Ms Comerford said that the first medical report stated: “Head injury, loss of consciousness, bowel incontinence, right shoulder injury query, right posterior elbow wound? left hand and wrist injury, left tibia wound exposure and maybe fracture.”

She said: “In the later reports, there is a reference to an x-ray to his tibia and fibula which was suggestive of a non-displaced fracture and ultimately it doesn’t appear that this was a fracture."

Ms Comerford said that “it is understandable when you look at the photos why there may have been a query on fractures when you look at the level of bruising sustained by the body of the boy”. 

She said that the boy slipped outside the Jamaica Inn and was lying on his stomach “and you can see clearly the marks on both buttocks, the wrist injury, the shoulder bruising, the arm injury and the bruising around the ribs and the gash to his shin bone when he was hit over and over again".

She said: “He lost consciousness for a while. He must have been hit multiple times in order to have sustained as many injuries as he did in the various locations you can see in the photos taken on the night and following day. 

“The only evidence you have on how those injuries were caused is the boy’s video statement who said that he was hit with a stick a number of times before he was knocked out.

“The reason why he knew he was knocked out is that he didn’t remember that he was dragged and also had incontinence… He can be forgiven for thinking that he disclosed his shoulder when you see the extensive bruising all around his shoulder.” 

Ms Comerford described Ms Gilligan’s prepared statement given to gardaí at Shannon Garda Station in February 2024 as “a self-serving fabricated story to justify an encounter with a 12-year-old child”.

She said that the account “is purposefully vague” and “I don’t think you can believe anything that Niall Gilligan says about how he came to assault the young boy”.

Ms Comerford said in his statement Mr Gilligan says he got “entangled in the dark and they fell on top of each other”.

She said: 

Mr Gilligan didn’t fall and get entangled with the boy. He beat him there and he knew it. He lost control, he was angry and frustrated and he needed to cover all angles and that is why he said that to the gardaí. 

Ms Comerford told the jury that they should give greater weight to the evidence of the 12-year-old boy and his friend who allowed themselves to be subject to cross-examination from Mr Whyms on their evidence and “withstood the cross-examination”.

Ms Comerford said that due to the level of force used by Mr Gilligan in the assault, the defence of self-defence should not be available to him.

At the conclusion of the closing speeches Judge Francis Comerford commenced his charge to the jury. Judge Comerford said that he will continue his charge to the jury on Tuesday.

When Judge Comerford completes his charge, the jury will then commence their deliberations.