Life in a border town for Tyrone man Ryan McAnespie

The Declan Bogue Interview

Ryan McAnespie lives his life in Tyrone but tomorrow will go to battle for Monaghan against the Red Hands. Here, he unravels the reasons for his Oriel links, the illustrious careers of his mother and sisters and how his family continue to strive for justice for his uncle, Aidan.

At 1am last Sunday, Ryan McAnespie stepped off the Monaghan team bus following a trip back from Galway that might have been gruelling under other circumstances, but for a side having qualified for their first All- Ireland semi-final since 1988, felt like floating home.

He stretched his weary limbs, the ones that gathered four points from play and covered big mileage in a performance that put him in contention for the GAA.ie player of the week, before heading for home.

On he went from Monaghan town, through Emyvale where he plays his club football. Across the Moy Bridge and into Tyrone, up the hill into Aughnacloy’s main thoroughfare and out the far side of the town to the family home.

The reason he lives there is knotted and intertwined with a structure that he passes every time he heads off to training or a match with his club or county.

On the roadside outside the grounds of the Aghaloo O’Neill’s club in Aughnacloy is a squat monument. The inscription reads: ‘In Loving Memory of Aidan McAnespie. Murdered at this spot by Crown Forces on 21st Feb 1988. Aged 23 years. RIP.’

30 years ago. 23 years old.

One year older than his nephew Ryan is now.

Aidan was making his way to an Aghaloo game against Killeeshil when he went through the British army checkpoint, the ground being close to the Moy bridge border. He had been the target of constant harrassment at the scene by British soldiers who would hold him for hours at a time.

Working in a poultry farm and checking on cattle across the border, it became a daily experience. He could almost be sanguine about it.

Frequent threats were made to end his life. In the end, the family would bring his dinner down to the barracks, knowing he would be detained for most of the evening.

On this Sunday morning, a bullet fired from a machine gun went into his back and as he lay on the ground, cars swerved past to make their way on through the checkpoint, oblivious to the carnage, deaf to the whistle of the bullet.

“When we are younger we would have moved to Emyvale. And that was probably one of the reasons why we moved down south. We were kept away from the area, not told anything, as such,” says Ryan now.

“But as you get older, you get more inquisitive and start to ask more questions and learn more about it. When I was growing up, the checkpoint… I vaguely remember it there. I might have been six or seven. And remembering the soldiers along the street, but I wouldn’t have strong memories about it.”

Partition and checkpoints destroyed the town. Tailbacks were often a mile long and agitation from holdups was a sad fact of life. Latter-day talk of hard Brexits and EU frontiers leaves the locals, who experienced the worst that barriers and divisions can sow, dismayed.

In an RTÉ radio documentary aired earlier this year, neighbours recounted how there were cheers coming from the barracks at the time of the shooting and how the road was later closed with gunshots going off, the implication that some fresh ‘ricochets’ were being gouged into the tar.

Charges were brought against Grenadier Guard David Jonathan Holden for manslaughter but were later dropped.

The day after the killing, Garda Deputy Commissioner Eugene Crowley was appointed by the Irish Government to investigate the incident.

The results of the investigation were received by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform but have never been published.

An RUC investigation concluded that the killing was accidental. One of the claims made in the aftermath was that Holden’s hands were wet and the gun slipped.

That version of events was later weighed up against the nine pounds of pressure it takes to pull the trigger on such apparatus.

A 2008 Historical Enquiries Team found that the soldier’s explanation was the ‘least likely version’ of what happened, adding the chances of this happening were, “so remote as to be virtually disregarded”.

In June of this year, the North’s Public Prosecution Service announced they would be charging Holden, now 48, for gross negligence manslaughter.

Aidan McAnespie was shot in the back at a British army checkpoint in Co Tyrone.

In one of his final duties before signing off as director-general of the GAA, Páiric Duffy — himself a Monaghan man and a former coach of an Aghaloo O’Neill’s senior team — wrote to justice minister Charlie Flanagan asking for the Crowley Report to be published. Calls of support have been added by Peter Canavan and former GAA President Peter Quinn.

In May, it emerged that a part of his rib cage was removed during a post-mortem and — without the knowledge or consent of the family — was disposed of. Potentially vital when it comes to ballistics evidence.

“I think the family are delighted now with the way it is going at the minute. Barry Lenihan from RTÉ, the family are very pleased with him, he has taken a lot on board and opened the whole thing up again, moving it forward. At a better pace at what might have been previously,” says McAnespie.

“But they are happy with the progress made and the publicity it is getting. I wouldn’t look too much into it, but the family are happy with how it is progressing and it is not being left as history, that they are going to get answers.”

His uncle’s name is preserved in history and lives in the public consciousness. A club in Boston are named ‘Aiden McAnespies’. After Monaghan were knocked out of the 2016 All-Ireland Championship, his nephew wanted to go and play a summer for them but time was too tight to sort out visas. Some day he will.

“To play for a club named after my uncle… For my family and all it would be nice. Nice to get out and be in somewhere different, but it would be a big thing for the family to play for them,” he says.

The ballad Aidan McAnespie has the refrain, ‘You murdered Aiden McAnespie on his way to the Gaelic ground.’ His name goes before him.

“You would get people making the connection. A couple of times, such as when you are going to the gym or whatever, I don’t know if they would think it a good connection or whatever, but different areas of Belfast you would be signing up for gyms and asked if you were any connection to Aidan McAnespie.”

Other people might ask him if he was any connection to Brenda Mohan.

Long before Ryan was winning an Ulster Championship still in his teens, his mother was a legendary ladies’ footballer with Monaghan.

Coming from Scotstown and immersed in their illustrious teams of the ‘80s, she played in All-Ireland finals when Ryan was a newborn, winning an All-Star from centre-back in 1997. She played in another final while just pregnant with daughter Eimear and kept it to herself.

When her daughters Ciara and Aoife came of age and Emyvale gathered up to relaunch their ladies team, she transferred from Monaghan Harps to play alongside them as they jumped rapidly through junior and intermediate ranks.

Now when Ryan has his post-training snack at the Monaghan training complex, a framed picture of sister Ciara accepting her 2016 All-Star award on stage beams down at him.

“She only had one brother and she would have been mad into the football when she was younger,” he says of his mother.

“But up in Scotstown the club football would have been big up there when she was growing up, the Caulfields and McCarvilles at that time.

“I would have gone to all the trainings and everything, in at Monaghan Harps there and different places around the county, Magheracloone and so on.”

His father, Vincie, played a bit for Aghaloo, a bit for Emyvale. As much as the knees would allow.

“My father would have been taking me to a lot of Tyrone games and aunties and uncles would have been big into Tyrone,” he says.

“Whenever Monaghan were beaten, Tyrone were the next team you were supporting. The likes of Peter Canavan were playing, someone you were looking up to when you were kicking about in the back garden too.

“It would have been more Championship games we would have went to (than league). I remember going to see them play Down in 2008 when they drew.

“I suppose, when you have a mother winning All-Irelands and All-Stars and a couple of All-Stars in sisters too, there is a lot to live up to.”

He’s one of seven children altogether. The youngest, Darren is 10 now, the same age Ryan was when he came across the border for good.

While he couldn’t sever the tie with Emyvale, his attempts to bring Darren there haven’t worked out. He wanted to stay with his friends and so is an Aghaloo clubman through and through.

“I was never going to leave Emyvale,” he says of himself.

“I grew up there and went to my primary school. Even with my father, cousins, and relatives in Aghaloo, but I was happy to be with Emyvale.”

His first memory of Monaghan came in the Division Two final of 2005. Seamus Banty McEnaney’s first year and Paul Finlay’s lofted free-kick dropped into the net by Meath’s Mark Ward in the last play to win the title.

“We all ran on to the pitch at the end,” he smiles.

“That was my most vivid memory. I was only 10 or 11 at the time.”

Still, he owes his footballing education to Tyrone.

During the week he would attend school in St Ciaran’s, Ballygawley where he came into contact with Pascal Canavan and Martin McElkennon, and the now Antrim backroom team of Fintan Devlin and Brendan Trainor.

“It was a very football-oriented school,” he recalls.

“It was a good environment to come through as well. Even the kind of football, you are playing with boys and it is different from club football, what I would have been playing down in Monaghan.

“It was completely different, the way they play, even the way they train and all. I suppose in the schools, it’s just the difference in school’s football than club football. It would be a lot more physical and more pace to it. Maybe it’s because you are playing with the pick of the club footballers but it was enjoyable to play there.”

On the evenings and weekends, he developed that huge lung capacity with Glaslough Harriers, starting at 800 and 1,000 metre runs, developing to 3k events before football commitments squeezed the time available.

He explains: “I would have known it was one of the stronger areas of my game; my endurance and athletic ability, so I tried to implement that into my game as best I could.”

Naturally, at one point Tyrone came calling. The minor manager in 2013 was Mickey Donnelly, of Aghaloo by coincidence. He made enquiries. It was a close run thing to one extent, but the insistence that he would have to switch clubs was never going to fly.

“There was interest there,” he reveals.

“I think they were in the stages of sorting out something. I wasn’t pushed. My time in St Ciaran’s there too, there might have been a bit of a draw, but I am happy with the way things worked out. I wouldn’t do anything different. You would have to move clubs and things like that. I would have been happy enough to play with Emyvale.”

He still leans towards Tyrone in other ways. A few weeks back, he graduated with his Sports Science degree from University Ulster Jordanstown.

He was living in a student house with Tyrone panellist Ben McDonnell, and other footballers from Errigal Ciaran and Beragh.

The funeral procession of Aidan McAnespie at Aughnaclay in 1988. The funeral cortege walked past the checkpoint on the way to the graveyard. Picture: Pacemaker.

Right now, he is one of the most important players in the Monaghan team. Talk to anyone around the panel and they will speak of a seriously level-headed, softly spoken grounded lad.

“I wouldn’t be outspoken,” he says.

“I would be quiet enough and wouldn’t do any talking or speaking before games. I focus on my own performance more than anything.”

He has the full sweep of honours, winning an Ulster minor title in 2013 and getting pulled into Malachy O’Rourke’s senior training panel the following February at just 18, having dragged Emyvale to an All-Ireland junior semi-final.

A year later, he won an Ulster U21 Championship and by the height of the summer, came off the bench after 45

minutes to replace Owen Duffy in the Ulster final as Monaghan beat Donegal.

His fitness levels and composure has always been off the charts, but now he has added a serious scoring threat, he is in All-Star territory.

Right now though, all he can think of is Tyrone. “I suppose you always dreamed of playing in All-Ireland semi-finals or finals, but I never witnessed a Monaghan team getting to those stages.

“Tyrone were the team getting there. And Armagh, they would have been the main Ulster teams.

“You are always hoping and dreaming it might change and that Monaghan might go up to the top and at the minute, we are getting close.”

Around Aughnacloy, all the conversations are of football right now. McAnespie stays inside his own bubble, a satellite of the greater Monaghan orbit.

On Thursday, a man by the name of Mickey Muldoon went over to the monument. An old friend of Aidan’s, he has lived his adult life in Coronation Park, hard up against where the barracks were. Even on his own wedding day, he and his bride Philomena were stopped, searched and detained in the wedding car as they travelled to their own reception in Monaghan town.

There are flagpoles just behind the monument and on the week of a big game, Muldoon runs flags of the competing counties up the poles.

This week, it’s Tyrone and Monaghan, right there, on the significant ground.

The Tyrone team bus will see it as one of the last things before they cross the border for an All-Ireland semi-final.

As will the McAnespies, different strands of the family wearing different county colours as they creep past the monument, over an invisible and frictionless border.

A century and one week after Gaelic Sunday when the Gaels of the country defied a Crowns Forces ruling, forbidding them from playing their games.

Onto Croke Park.

To watch their son, brother and cousin, Ryan.

On their way to the Gaelic ground.