THE SHOOTING OF AIDAN McANESPIE

I
It was on a Sunday afternoon in the year of 1988,
When Aidan McAnespie met with a cruel fate.
As he walked to join his comrades there to play a sporting part.
A vicious British sniper shot Aidan through the heart.

II
For many months beforehand they harassed him night and day.
And many a time they told him that they'd soon 'blow him away'.
They had told his father that they'd kill his youngest boy.
They kept their dreadful promise that day near Aughnacloy.

III
The Cardinal called it murder and murder indeed it was.
For in broad daylight they shot him without reason, right or cause.
They said 'twas accidental - a ricochet we were told
But we don't believe their stories for we know their tricks of old.

IV
Then they conspired with their, ~slings to cover up the truth,
As they did before too often when they killed an Irish youth.
But their days of lies and terror are nearly at an end.
While another Irish mother has a lonely grave to tend.

V
You may terrorise our people - you may kill our noble Gaels,
You may keep our guiltless comrades in your squalid English gaols,
You may tell the world your falsehoods, You may scare both young and old,
But you'll never break the spirit of our freedom fighters bold.

~ Written by Peter Keenan, Monaghan