ADD: Aidan McAnespie

Subject: add: Aidan McAnespie^^
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 19 Nov 01 - 09:02 AM

I've found this using google.

Jon.

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Aidan McAnespie
'Twas on a Sunday evening,the sun shone in the sky
as he made his way to the Gaelic ground never thinking he was going to die
but as he crossed the checkpoint, the sound of gunfire came
The news spread through the border town … Aidan McAnespie was slain.

Chorus:
Oh why did you do it? and not have guts to say …
to say it was an accident or even a richochet?
for like Loughall and Gibraltar, your lies are well renowned …
For ye murdered Aidan McAnespie on his way to the Gaeligh ground

For years he was hounded by the forces of the crown
as he walked to work every day, he left his native town.
The soldiers swore they'd get him, for reasons no one could say
and sure enough they murdered him in cold blood on that sunny day.

The people heard the gunfire, they came from miles around,
they saw that young man lying there, he was dying on the ground.
His flow of life was ebbing fast, the people they did their best
but that bullet wound was far too deep … it passed right through his chest.

Chorus

Aidan's life was ending, it was time for judgement day
the soldier jumped down from the tower … the coward he ran away.
God's curse on you England, for this cruel deed you've done
but God will have the final say when your judgement day will come.

To say it was an accident was the gravest crime of all
to his heart broken hearted family it was the worst that could befall.
A cross now marks the lonely spot where Aidan he was shot down
as he walked that sunny evening … on his way to Gealigh Town

Chorus^^

Subject: Aidan McAnespie
From: Wolfgang
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 03:13 AM

from the CAIN website:

The opening months of 1988 witnessed a souring of Anglo-Irish relations. The decision in January not to prosecute eleven RUC officers as a result of the Stalker/Sampson inquiry was followed a few days later by the London Court of Appeal's rejection of the appeal of the six men convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, despite new forensic evidence being produced. The Irish justice minister said that he was 'amazed and saddened' by the decision, and when a young Catholic, Aidan McAnespie, was killed at a British army border checkpoint in County Tyrone in February the Irish government set up its own inquiry into the killing^^

Wolfgang

Subject: Aidan McAnespie^^
From: Wolfgang
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 07:47 AM

another note to the song above (copied from http://www.poiesis.org/pjo/pjo2.html):

I met Eilish McCabe, in the border village of Auchnacloy, in County Tyrone. Her brother, Aidan McAnespie, had been killed by a British soldier's bullet from the checkpoint which straddles the main road out of the village into the Irish republic. The Army said it was an accident which took place while the soldier was cleaning his gun. The "accident" occurred as Mr McAnespie walked up the road towards the checkpoint, a hundred metres or so away, and the rifle would have to have been pointing out of the sniper's aperture at the time it was being cleaned for the Army version to have been correct. But Ms McCabe had long since passed the point, she said, of seeking justice for his killer. At a belated inquest, the only witness, another British soldier, had conveniently gone AWOL and so could not give evidence. She wanted "the truth," so the family could move on from his death. ^^

Wolfgang