Private Herbert Aspinall

100th Anniversary Commemorative Pin Badge

1924 - 2024

Born in Rochdale on the 29th August 1905. Private Aspinall Enlisted in Royal Army Service Corps in 1923. He was shot dead at the Pier Head, Cobh, County Cork, during an Anti-Treaty IRA attack on troops stationed at Spike Island in Cork Harbour.

On Friday, 21st March 1924, at around 7.00pm a large yellow Rolls Royce touring car pulled up opposite the main landing jetty in Cobh, Co. Cork.  Inside sat four men in the uniforms of the Irish Free State army.  They watched as a passenger ferry operated by the British War Department, the Sir John Wyndham, pulled up at the jetty, known locally as the Pier Head, and a group of up to 50 unarmed British soldiers and a number of civilians disembarked from the vessel.

Without warning, the men in the car produced two Lewis machine guns and began to fire on the soldiers on the pier.  Up to 18 soldiers and a number of civilians fell, many of the soldiers were very seriously injured and one of them, Private Herbert Aspinall of the Royal Army Service Corps, died an hour later at Spike Island Military Hospital. 

The remains of Private Herbert Aspinall were brought back to England on 27th March 1924. 

Private Herbert Aspinall is buried in Rochdale Cemetery.

We Will Remember Him