All-Ireland winner 'hit boy (12) full force with stick'

Gilligan denies charge of assault causing harm

- BY GORDON DEEGAN

A 12-YEAR OLD boy told gardai that former Clare All-Ireland winning hurler Niall Gilligan whacked him “full force’ with a stick during an alleged assault.

At Ennis Circuit Court yesterday, in a video interview with specialist Garda interviewers played to the jury, the boy said Niall Gilligan “just kept hitting me” outside the Jamaica Inn in Sixmilebridge on October 5, 2023.

Mr Gilligan, 48, denies the charge of assault causing harm to the boy.

In the interview carried out on November 11, 2023, the boy said he went along to the abandoned Jamaica Inn hostel with a friend to explore at around 5pm on October 5, 2023.

Mr Gilligan owned the Jamaica Inn hostel at the time and, in the days running up to October 5, the jury was told, the property had been vandalised and had been broken into.

The boy said that on exiting the building, he and his friend who was 13 at the time - ran after they saw a man and he slipped.