Patrick Coughlan's widowed mother, Brigid, said yesterday that she was very saddened and depressed at the news of the conviction.
"I was thinking that he might be coming home soon. That was what I was thinking and praying for. I have not seen him for 12 months."
Instead, Coughlan had been sentenced to four years in prison by a judge who said he had brought shame on his family.
Although Coughlan gave an Ennis address when charged, that house is now empty. His wife, a teacher, is believed to have returned to her home in Co Tipperary.
His background as a west Clare farmer gives no hint of how he came to be convicted for laundering more than £5 million sterling.
His family home is at Ballynacally, a village of 200 people, seven miles from Ennis. People in the village said the family is a normal, very respected one and has been very upset by the news of Coughlan's trial, which has dragged on for some time since he was originally charged.
They had not seen Coughlan much in recent years.
He still has a farm and a house in the area, but there were only occasional sightings of him before the rumours began that he was in trouble in England.
The eldest of a family of three, he is remembered as an ordinary man who had an unremarkable upbringing.
After school, he went into beef farming and lived in Ennis when he got married. He was not active in the GAA, although there is a vibrant local football club.
"He would not tell you his mind," said one man who remembered him.
With three pubs and one post office, Ballynacally is a typical west of Ireland village which won a citation in the Tidy Towns competition.
Two miles outside the village, in the townland of Ballycorick, Coughlan's brother, a teacher, now runs the farm on a part-time basis.
A mile up a bóithrín and with views of the Shannon Estuary, it is considered a fairly typical holding.
His mother still lives there.