SOUTHERN SERVICES FOR OMAGH VICTIMS
Southern services for Omagh victims
By Noel McAdam
A WEXFORD church is holding special services of sympathy tomorrow for the victims of the Omagh bomb outrage.
The masses at St Bridget's Church, in Blackwater, south of Gorey, are part of a number across the Republic, including in Sligo and Donegal, two weeks and a day after the explosion which killed 28 and injured around 200.
Omagh SDLP councillor Pat McDonnell, who is an historian, is to represent the council at the Wexford service. Another service was held in the Liberties in Dublin on Wednesday last. Mr McDonnell said: "This seems to have been a spontaneous gesture by this quite small parish in Wexford who want to sympathise with the horror of Omagh.
"They contacted the council and it is very gratifying that people want to share the horror and grief of our community. It helps to have other people grieving with you."
The Rev Anthony Woods, parish priest of Blackwater, said: "I hope that Mr McDonnell will be able to say a few words at each of our masses. My idea was that it would be nice for someone to come down.
"We already held a mass for Omagh last Monday also and I have been in contact with the curate Father John Gilmore, up there."
The services in the South come amid widespread praise for how the main church leaders and local clergy responded to the atrocity by the Real IRA.
The churches called for, and helped organise, the hundreds of acts of reflection right across the island of Ireland last Saturday at the precise time of the bomb.
And consideration is still being given to the details of a possible National Day of Mourning and other official memorial church services.
The Church of Ireland Gazette, in its editorial yesterday, said: "The carnage in Omagh has shown, as never before, that the way ahead lies through co-operation and through politics.
"Whatever the difficulties, and there will be many, the Assembly mast be made to work, for there is simply no alternative.
"Those who set out to wreck the Assembly, or to render it unworkable, will fly in the face of the overwhelming wishes of the people 'just as the bombers have done in their unspeakable evil."
A book of remembrance is to be created out of the messages and cards attached to the many hundreds of floral tributes left in the aftermath of the bombing.
A book of poems, including verse by one of the victims 12-year-old Sean McLaughlin from Buncrana, and other material is also being collated by the council.
By Noel McAdam
A WEXFORD church is holding special services of sympathy tomorrow for the victims of the Omagh bomb outrage.
The masses at St Bridget's Church, in Blackwater, south of Gorey, are part of a number across the Republic, including in Sligo and Donegal, two weeks and a day after the explosion which killed 28 and injured around 200.
Omagh SDLP councillor Pat McDonnell, who is an historian, is to represent the council at the Wexford service. Another service was held in the Liberties in Dublin on Wednesday last. Mr McDonnell said: "This seems to have been a spontaneous gesture by this quite small parish in Wexford who want to sympathise with the horror of Omagh.
"They contacted the council and it is very gratifying that people want to share the horror and grief of our community. It helps to have other people grieving with you."
The Rev Anthony Woods, parish priest of Blackwater, said: "I hope that Mr McDonnell will be able to say a few words at each of our masses. My idea was that it would be nice for someone to come down.
"We already held a mass for Omagh last Monday also and I have been in contact with the curate Father John Gilmore, up there."
The services in the South come amid widespread praise for how the main church leaders and local clergy responded to the atrocity by the Real IRA.
The churches called for, and helped organise, the hundreds of acts of reflection right across the island of Ireland last Saturday at the precise time of the bomb.
And consideration is still being given to the details of a possible National Day of Mourning and other official memorial church services.
The Church of Ireland Gazette, in its editorial yesterday, said: "The carnage in Omagh has shown, as never before, that the way ahead lies through co-operation and through politics.
"Whatever the difficulties, and there will be many, the Assembly mast be made to work, for there is simply no alternative.
"Those who set out to wreck the Assembly, or to render it unworkable, will fly in the face of the overwhelming wishes of the people 'just as the bombers have done in their unspeakable evil."
A book of remembrance is to be created out of the messages and cards attached to the many hundreds of floral tributes left in the aftermath of the bombing.
A book of poems, including verse by one of the victims 12-year-old Sean McLaughlin from Buncrana, and other material is also being collated by the council.
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0323
Published Date: 29-Aug-98
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