One of the most fortified crossings in Europe
The checkpoint
The Aughnacloy checkpoint on the A5 was established in the early 1970s as the Troubles intensified and the British government imposed strict controls on movement across the Irish border. At its peak it was among the most heavily fortified border crossings in Europe - raised watchtowers giving soldiers sightlines over the surrounding countryside, permanent vehicle inspection bays, a permanent RUC and British Army presence. For people living in the area, crossing into the Republic and back was a daily or weekly event that involved stopping, papers, searches, and whatever mood the soldiers on duty happened to be in. Lorry drivers on the A5 freight route could be delayed for hours. The crossing funnelled one of the busiest north-south traffic arteries in Ireland through a security bottleneck that announced, with concrete and steel, the nature of the border it guarded. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 set in motion the normalisation process. The checkpoint infrastructure was dismantled in the early 2000s. By the mid-2000s the last of the physical structures were gone. What remained was the road, the river, and the village.
21 February 1988
Aidan McAnespie
Aidan McAnespie was twenty-three years old and from Aughnacloy. On the morning of 21 February 1988, he walked through the checkpoint on his way to Aghaloo GAA grounds in Tircrevan, where he was expected for a Gaelic football match. McAnespie had been under regular harassment at the checkpoint - his family and local sources later described a pattern of delay, targeting, and intimidation at the crossing that had been ongoing for some time. As he cleared the barrier, a British soldier in a watchtower above fired a general purpose machine gun. McAnespie was struck in the back. He died of his injuries. The soldier, a Private David Jonathan Holden, claimed the weapon discharged accidentally because his hands were wet. No criminal proceedings followed at the time. A historical inquiry was initiated decades later under the Historical Enquiries Team and subsequently transferred to the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Legacy Investigation Branch. In November 2022 - thirty-four years after the killing - Holden was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence at Belfast Crown Court. The judge found he had pointed the weapon at McAnespie and pulled the trigger while assuming, wrongly, that it was not cocked. In February 2023, Holden received a three-year sentence, suspended for three years. McAnespie's family and the wider nationalist community had waited more than three decades for the conviction. Many considered the sentence inadequate. A mural commemorating Aidan McAnespie remains in the area.
The watchtowers come down, the road opens up
After the Agreement
The period between the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 and the mid-2000s was one of visible physical change in Aughnacloy. The normalisation process - decommissioning of paramilitary weapons, drawdown of military infrastructure - was slow and contested in some places, but the border itself changed faster than expected. Customs checks had already been removed when Ireland and the United Kingdom entered the European single market in 1993, which meant the customs infrastructure was already redundant by the time the security installations were dismantled. What had been a village defined by its checkpoint became a village defined by the absence of one. The A5 is now a busy north-south artery used daily by commuters, freight, and visitors without pause. The Irish government's long-promised dualling of the A5 between Derry and the border - part of the St Andrews Agreement commitments - has been in planning and contested for years and remains unfinished at time of writing. When the road works come, Aughnacloy will be at the centre of a construction project that will reshape the crossing once more. The river will still be there.