Kathleen Gillespie with her late husband Patsy who was murdered by the IRA
A BBC documentary to be screened this week reveals the friendship between Kathleen Gillespie and former IRA member Anne Walker.
Kathleen’s husband Patsy Gillespie (42), a cook at Fort George Army base in Derry, was kidnapped by the IRA and tied into his van, which had been loaded with a massive bomb on October 24, 1990.
He was told to drive it to the Army checkpoint near the Donegal border at Coshquin while members of the IRA gang held his wife and children hostage in their home.
The device was detonated, killing Mr Gillespie and five soldiers.
The IRA said it didn’t regard Mr Gillespie as a civilian because he worked in the Army base.
Anne Walker was so disgusted with the murders in the proxy bomb attack that she left the IRA, moving to Limerick from her hometown.
The pair met each other at a peace and reconciliation group in the city.
Ms Walker told the BBC documentary: “Before I met Kathleen, I thought whatever this woman says to me, whatever this woman had to do, I am just going to take it.”
However, she said: “When we met she threw her arms around me and gave me a massive hug and said that we are going to be okay.”
Mrs Gillespie said: “If you look at the two extremes of myself, whose husband was murdered brutally by the IRA, and I’m best friends with a ex-IRA woman, we are the embodiment of what can be.
“But I will never forgive the IRA because they tore my life and my family’s life apart.”
The documentary has contributions from Father Ted star Ardal O’Hanlon, who grew up close to the border in Carrickmacross, as well as Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole, who remembers travelling to Belfast every year to smuggle new clothes across the border to his family home in Dublin.
Border Country: When Ireland Was Divided airs on BBC 1 tonight, Wednesday, March 27 at 10.35pm
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