PRINCE PLEADS FOR PEACE
Prince pleads for peace
By John Hicks
IT WAS at the end of a six-hour visit to Omagh when Prince Charles delivered an impassioned plea for peace in Ireland.
Outside the Tyrone County Hospital, he said: "Let us pray this time that it will be the end of all the horrors that poor Ireland has had to suffer."
He told how the Omagh massacre evoked his feelings of revulsion over the IRA murder of Lord Mount-batten in 1979.
He added: "I remember only too well the feelings of anger when my great uncle Lord Mountbatten and other relatives were blown to small pieces.
"I remember 19 years ago hoping something positive would come out of it, but unfortunately things have gone on."
The Prince of Wales spent two hours at the Omagh hospital - where all the dead and injured were initially taken after the explosion.
He spoke to doctors and nurses who tended to the scores of dying and wounded.
But most of his time was spent at the bedside of the 15 survivors undergoing treatment for multiple shrapnel wounds.
All of them - including two boys aged 11 and 14 - were described as stable.
Said a member of the medical staff: "The Prince's visit was a real morale booster for the patients and staff alike."
In a poignant moment, the Prince paused to read the front page of Monday's Belfast Telegraph which a local person had pinned up above bouquets. 'A Day We Will Never Forget,' the headline read.
Earlier more than 500 men, women and children stood behind crash barriers in the town's High Street to greet the Prince.
Accompanied by the Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, David Trimble, Seamus Mallon and local MP Willie Thompson, he shook hands and listened intensely to horror stories of Saturday afternoon.
Patrick Mulcahy, manager of a hardware store a mile from Omagh, told the Prince he had three relatives in three different hospitals including his future daughter-in-law Kate Kelly (23).
She and her young bridesmaid were shopping for the September wedding to his son Bryan when a chunk of shrapnel from the bomb scythed her down.
He said: "It was a great uplift for the town to have him visit us. He told me he was praying the bomb would be the last in Northern Ireland."
The Prince of Wales told Omagh woman Kathleen Winters how-sorry he felt for the RUC officers who led people away from the courthouse where the police were told the bomb was planted.
She said: "He said he felt so sorry for the young police officers who shepherded people in the wrong direction.
"He said they should never feel it was their fault."
Outside the shuttered Watterson's drapery shop, which lost three members of staff, the Prince read many of the tributes on wreaths placed outside on the pavement. One simply said: "Baby Maura. From Rona, age 3 yrs. I was lucky."
Another read: "They will never be forgiven."
Away from the crowds, the Prince was shown the blast scene and placed a wreath.
He chose the flowers himself from his garden in Highgrove earlier in the day.
By John Hicks
IT WAS at the end of a six-hour visit to Omagh when Prince Charles delivered an impassioned plea for peace in Ireland.
Outside the Tyrone County Hospital, he said: "Let us pray this time that it will be the end of all the horrors that poor Ireland has had to suffer."
He told how the Omagh massacre evoked his feelings of revulsion over the IRA murder of Lord Mount-batten in 1979.
He added: "I remember only too well the feelings of anger when my great uncle Lord Mountbatten and other relatives were blown to small pieces.
"I remember 19 years ago hoping something positive would come out of it, but unfortunately things have gone on."
The Prince of Wales spent two hours at the Omagh hospital - where all the dead and injured were initially taken after the explosion.
He spoke to doctors and nurses who tended to the scores of dying and wounded.
But most of his time was spent at the bedside of the 15 survivors undergoing treatment for multiple shrapnel wounds.
All of them - including two boys aged 11 and 14 - were described as stable.
Said a member of the medical staff: "The Prince's visit was a real morale booster for the patients and staff alike."
In a poignant moment, the Prince paused to read the front page of Monday's Belfast Telegraph which a local person had pinned up above bouquets. 'A Day We Will Never Forget,' the headline read.
Earlier more than 500 men, women and children stood behind crash barriers in the town's High Street to greet the Prince.
Accompanied by the Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, David Trimble, Seamus Mallon and local MP Willie Thompson, he shook hands and listened intensely to horror stories of Saturday afternoon.
Patrick Mulcahy, manager of a hardware store a mile from Omagh, told the Prince he had three relatives in three different hospitals including his future daughter-in-law Kate Kelly (23).
She and her young bridesmaid were shopping for the September wedding to his son Bryan when a chunk of shrapnel from the bomb scythed her down.
He said: "It was a great uplift for the town to have him visit us. He told me he was praying the bomb would be the last in Northern Ireland."
The Prince of Wales told Omagh woman Kathleen Winters how-sorry he felt for the RUC officers who led people away from the courthouse where the police were told the bomb was planted.
She said: "He said he felt so sorry for the young police officers who shepherded people in the wrong direction.
"He said they should never feel it was their fault."
Outside the shuttered Watterson's drapery shop, which lost three members of staff, the Prince read many of the tributes on wreaths placed outside on the pavement. One simply said: "Baby Maura. From Rona, age 3 yrs. I was lucky."
Another read: "They will never be forgiven."
Away from the crowds, the Prince was shown the blast scene and placed a wreath.
He chose the flowers himself from his garden in Highgrove earlier in the day.
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0094
Published Date: 19-Aug-98
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