Clan Boyle People

Jimmy Boyle (born 1944, Glasgow)
Once reputed to be the most violent man in Scotland, in 1967 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of another gangland figure, William “Babs” Rooney, although Boyle denies that he committed this killing. Whilst incarcerated in the special unit of Barlinnie Prison, he turned to art, and wrote an autobiography, A Sense of Freedom, which has since been filmed. On his release from prison he moved to Edinburgh to continue his artistic career. He designed the largest concrete sculpture in Europe called “Gulliver” for The Craigmillar Festival Society in 1976.

Boyle has also published Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries, and a novel, Hero of the Underworld. The latter was adapted for a French film, La Rage et le Reve des Condamnes (The Anger and Dreams of the Condemned), and won the best documentary prize at the Fifa Montreal awards in 2002.