Veronica Guerin

Veronica Guerin Turley (5 July 1959 – 26 June 1996) was an Irish investigative journalist focusing on organised crime in the Republic of Ireland, who was murdered in a contract killing believed to have been ordered by a South Dublin-based drug cartel.

Born in Dublin, she was an athlete in school and later played on the Irish national teams for both Association football and basketball.

After studying accountancy she ran a public-relations firm for seven years, before working for Fianna Fáil and as an election agent for Seán Haughey.

She played for both the Ireland women's national basketball team and Republic of Ireland women's national football team, representing the latter in a match against England at Dalymount Park in May 1981.

Guerin studied accountancy at Trinity College Dublin.

After she graduated, her father employed her at his company; but following his death three years later, she changed professions and started a public relations firm in 1983, which she ran for seven years.

In 1983–84, she served as secretary to the Fianna Fáil group at the New Ireland Forum.

She served as Charles Haughey's personal assistant, and became a family friend, taking holidays with his children.

She married Graham Turley in 1985, and the couple had a son, Cathal (born 1990).

She was a supporter of Manchester United football team; her prized possession was a photo of her and Eric Cantona taken on a visit to Old Trafford.

In 1987 she served as election agent and party treasurer in Dublin North for Seán Haughey.

She became a reporter in 1990, writing for the Sunday Business Post and Sunday Tribune.

In 1990, she changed careers again, switching to journalism as a reporter with the Sunday Business Post and Sunday Tribune, working under editor Damien Kiberd.

Craving first-hand information, she pursued a story directly to the source with little regard for her personal safety, to engage those she deemed central to a story.

This allowed her to build close relationships with both the legitimate authorities, such as the Garda Síochána (police), and the criminals, with both sides respecting her diligence by providing highly detailed information.

She also reported on Irish Republican Army activities in the Republic of Ireland.

In 1994 she began writing articles about the Irish criminal underworld for the Sunday Independent.

From 1994 onwards, she began to write about criminals for the Sunday Independent.

Using her accountancy knowledge to trace the proceeds of illegal activity, she used street names or pseudonyms for underworld figures to avoid Irish libel laws.

When she began to cover drug dealers and gained information from convicted drugs criminal John Traynor, she received numerous death threats.

The first violence against her occurred in October 1994, when two shots were fired into her home after her story on murdered crime kingpin Martin Cahill was published.

Guerin dismissed the "warning".

The day after writing an article on Gerry "The Monk" Hutch, on 30 January 1995, she answered her doorbell to a man pointing a revolver at her head, but the gunman missed and shot her in the leg.

Regardless, she vowed to continue her investigations.

Independent Newspapers installed a security system to protect her, and the Gardaí gave her a 24-hour escort; however, she did not approve of this, saying that it hampered her work.

On 13 September 1995, convicted criminal John Gilligan, Traynor's boss, attacked her when she confronted him about his lavish lifestyle with no source of income.

He later called her at home and threatened to kidnap and rape her son, and kill her if she wrote anything about him.

Guerin received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists in December 1995.

In 1996, after pressing charges for assault against major organised crime figure John Gilligan, Guerin was ambushed and fatally shot in her vehicle while waiting at a traffic light.

The shooting caused national outrage in Ireland.

Investigation into her death led to a number of arrests and convictions.

The daughter of Christopher and Bernadette, Guerin was nicknamed "Ronnie."

She and her four siblings were born and brought up in Artane, Dublin, and attended St.Mary's secondary school in Killester where she excelled in athletics.

Besides basketball and camogie, aged 15 she played in the All-Ireland football finals with a slipped disc.

On the evening of 25 June 1996, Gilligan drug gang members Charles Bowden, Brian Meehan, Kieran 'Muscles' Concannon, Peter Mitchell and Paul Ward met at their distribution premises on the Greenmount Industrial Estate.

Bowden, the gang's distributor and ammunition quartermaster, supplied the three with a Colt Python revolver loaded with .357 Magnum semiwadcutter bullets.

On 26 June 1996, while driving her red Opel Calibra, Guerin stopped at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin, unaware she was being followed.

She was then shot six times, fatally, by one of two men sitting on a motorcycle.

About an hour after Guerin was murdered, a meeting took place in Moore Street, Dublin, between Bowden, Meehan, and Mitchell.

Bowden later denied under oath in court that the purpose of the meeting was the disposal of the weapon but rather that it was an excuse to appear in a public setting to place them away from the incident.