Gilligan studied acting at the
Betty Ann Norton Theatre School in Dublin from the age of six, and later secured theatre, TV commercial and short film roles. Her first professional role was at the
Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, at the age of 11. as a
Transition Year secondary school project. After reading and editing by successful novelist
Patricia Scanlan, and extensive rewriting, the novel was published in 2006 in the UK and Ireland, reaching number one on the Irish Bestsellers' List, making her the youngest person in Ireland ever to have done so. Achieving eight Higher-Level A1 grades in her
Leaving Certificate examinations, While in second year there she published her second novel,
Somewhere in Between, which was also translated into German. In January 2009, Gilligan was announced as the youngest ever recipient of an
O'Reilly Foundation Scholarship to pursue advanced studies in English literature. Her third book was launched in Blackrock, County Dublin in August 2009, following which she discussed her work, scholarship and GB Olympic fencing boyfriend
Alex O'Connell, to whom the book is dedicated, in a live TV interview. From 2009-2010 she attended
Yale University, earning an MA in English literature. From 2010-2011 she was enrolled on the Creative Writing MA at the
University of East Anglia. In 2014 she earned her PhD in English from the
University of Exeter. Having set aside a new novel, In 2017, it was published in the US by
Tin House, and in Israel by Penn Israel.
The Butchers (also published under the title ''The Butchers' Blessing
), was published in 2020. Set in the 1990s, it tells of a group of men, known as The Butchers, who travel around Ireland to farmers who follow the "old ways", slaughtering cattle according to a traditional ritual which stems from an ancient curse; the BSE outbreak in Ireland forms a background. Gilligan has said that readers are often shocked or hurt to find out that both the ritual and the curse are made up. The Butchers'' won the 2021
Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. ==Books==