IRELAND STANDS IN SILENCE
Ireland stands in silence, heads bowed, as mother asks bombers: Why?
By Rosie Uffindell
TO THE BOLD LADS WHO RIPPED THE HEART OUT OF OMAGH.
I WILL PROBABLY NEVER KNOW WHO YOU ARE - BUT YOU KNOW.
I'LL TELL YOU WHO I AM. MY NAME IS GWEN. I AM THE MOTHER OF ALASTAIR WHO IS THE BRAVEST PERSON I KNOW. WE AND ALL THE OTHER VICTIMS OF YOUR AMBUSH LAST SATURDAY WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHY? I WENT TO HELL AND BACK LYING INJURED IN THE DEBRIS AND WATER AND BLOOD NOT KNOWING IF MY 12 YEAR OLD SON WAS ALIVE OR DEAD. BY GOD'S GRACE HE SURVIVED AND THAT IS WHY I AM LYING HERE ABLE TO WRITE. I WISH YOU COULD HAVE HEARD THAT CHILD CRYING INCONSOLABLY YESTERDAY AS HE WITH THE PAIN FROM HIS SEVERED LIMB THAT WAS WHAT RIPPED AT MY HEART. HOWEVER, WE ARE TWO OF THE LUCKY ONES, FOR WHICH I THANK GOD. WE DO HAVE A FUTURE
YOU MAY HAVE BROKEN THE BODIES OF THE PEOPLE OF OMAGH, BUT YOU CAN NEVER BREAK THEIR SPIRIT.
THE LAST LINE OF ONE OF MY FAVOURITE SONGS IS -
GOD IS WATCHING US ... FROM A DISTANCE
YOU CAN RUN - BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE.
ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE OF OMAGH - THE BEREAVED, INJURED AND ANYONE ELSE AFFECTED
A MOTHER injured in the Omagh attack has penned an extraordinary message to the bombers responsible.
In a powerful statement of raw emotion written from her hospital bed, Gwen Hall asks the "bold lads who ripped the heart out of Omagh" to explain why they have sent her "to hell and back" and left her son crying with pain.
And in a defiant stance, she tells the bombers they may have broken the bodies of the people of Omagh, "but you can never break their spirit".
Many of the injured have given graphic eye-witness accounts of the blast, but Mrs Hall's letter is thought to be the first statement wholly directed at those behind the attack.
Her message comes as Tony Blair considers new measures to tackle terrorism in the wake of the Omagh bomb, due to be announced tomorrow when he makes his first visit to the town, and as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern warned that Omagh may not be the last terrorist atrocity in Northern Ireland.
Seven people were still fighting for their lives last night in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital and more than 70 victims remained in hospitals throughout Northern Ireland.
Mrs Hall, who is being treated in Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital, asked the Irish News to publish her message to the bombers in a bid to give them a sense of what she and other victims of the attack were going through.
Mrs Hall writes of how she lay injured in the town last Saturday, unsure whether her 12-year-old son Alastair was still alive.
Although he survived, Mrs Hall says she now has to cope with her son's tears as he endures the agony caused by losing the lower part of his right leg.
Just three weeks ago Alastair was playing rugby with his elder brother Michael after his university graduation ceremony in Cardiff. Michael had taken his rugby-mad brother to play outside Cardiff Arms Park.
Now Mrs Hall says the pain Alastair is going through "ripped at my heart" but she goes on to thank God for the fact they both still have a future.
She quotes the last line of one of her favourite songs, From a distance, by American singer/songwriter Nancy Griffith: "God is watching us, from a distance/You can run - but you cannot hide."
And she asks just one question: 'why?'
In an accompanying letter, another of Mrs Hall's sons said the message "was something she just had to write, in order to get it out of her system.
"The enclosed piece was written by my mother as she lies in her hospital bed, a victim of the Omagh bombing," he wrote.
"She requested me to send this to you and asks you to print it in her paper...
"She wants it printed in order the give the 'boys who did this' even the slightest idea of what she and hundreds of others have had to go through in the last week.
"The more people that can see this and unite together with the common aim of peace in Northern Ireland the better, and reading this will at least make people stop and think."
Mrs Hall's message comes as Prime Minister Tony Blair faces pressure to match Irish security initiatives launched in the wake of the Omagh bombing.
Measures under consideration are thought to include convicting on the evidence of a single police officer and allowing evidence from telephone tapping to be admissible in court.
And last night the RUC issued a TV appeal in a bid to get more information on a Vauxhall Cavalier which carried the bomb.
Police released a snapshot of the car taken by a victim of the Omagh bomb minutes before being killed.
The photograph of the scene in Market Street captured a red Vauxhall Cavalier just before it exploded.
The picture was processed by police after a disposable camera, which survived the blast, was discovered among the rubble.
Meanwhile, dozens of businesses in Omagh which were undamaged by last weekend's bomb are expected to stay closed today because their staff are among the dead and injured.
Michael Gaine, president of the town's Chamber of Commerce, said while it was vital that shops begin to reopen, many would be unable to do so.
Among the 27 patients still being treated at the Royal Victoria Hospital last night was Tracey Devine, the mother of 21-month-old Breda who was killed in the blast.
Mrs Devine is being treated for 60 per cent burns.
Her brother, Gary McGillion, and his fiancee, Donna Marie Keys are also in the hospital. They were to be married on Saturday.
By Rosie Uffindell
TO THE BOLD LADS WHO RIPPED THE HEART OUT OF OMAGH.
I WILL PROBABLY NEVER KNOW WHO YOU ARE - BUT YOU KNOW.
I'LL TELL YOU WHO I AM. MY NAME IS GWEN. I AM THE MOTHER OF ALASTAIR WHO IS THE BRAVEST PERSON I KNOW. WE AND ALL THE OTHER VICTIMS OF YOUR AMBUSH LAST SATURDAY WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHY? I WENT TO HELL AND BACK LYING INJURED IN THE DEBRIS AND WATER AND BLOOD NOT KNOWING IF MY 12 YEAR OLD SON WAS ALIVE OR DEAD. BY GOD'S GRACE HE SURVIVED AND THAT IS WHY I AM LYING HERE ABLE TO WRITE. I WISH YOU COULD HAVE HEARD THAT CHILD CRYING INCONSOLABLY YESTERDAY AS HE WITH THE PAIN FROM HIS SEVERED LIMB THAT WAS WHAT RIPPED AT MY HEART. HOWEVER, WE ARE TWO OF THE LUCKY ONES, FOR WHICH I THANK GOD. WE DO HAVE A FUTURE
YOU MAY HAVE BROKEN THE BODIES OF THE PEOPLE OF OMAGH, BUT YOU CAN NEVER BREAK THEIR SPIRIT.
THE LAST LINE OF ONE OF MY FAVOURITE SONGS IS -
GOD IS WATCHING US ... FROM A DISTANCE
YOU CAN RUN - BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE.
ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE OF OMAGH - THE BEREAVED, INJURED AND ANYONE ELSE AFFECTED
A MOTHER injured in the Omagh attack has penned an extraordinary message to the bombers responsible.
In a powerful statement of raw emotion written from her hospital bed, Gwen Hall asks the "bold lads who ripped the heart out of Omagh" to explain why they have sent her "to hell and back" and left her son crying with pain.
And in a defiant stance, she tells the bombers they may have broken the bodies of the people of Omagh, "but you can never break their spirit".
Many of the injured have given graphic eye-witness accounts of the blast, but Mrs Hall's letter is thought to be the first statement wholly directed at those behind the attack.
Her message comes as Tony Blair considers new measures to tackle terrorism in the wake of the Omagh bomb, due to be announced tomorrow when he makes his first visit to the town, and as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern warned that Omagh may not be the last terrorist atrocity in Northern Ireland.
Seven people were still fighting for their lives last night in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital and more than 70 victims remained in hospitals throughout Northern Ireland.
Mrs Hall, who is being treated in Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital, asked the Irish News to publish her message to the bombers in a bid to give them a sense of what she and other victims of the attack were going through.
Mrs Hall writes of how she lay injured in the town last Saturday, unsure whether her 12-year-old son Alastair was still alive.
Although he survived, Mrs Hall says she now has to cope with her son's tears as he endures the agony caused by losing the lower part of his right leg.
Just three weeks ago Alastair was playing rugby with his elder brother Michael after his university graduation ceremony in Cardiff. Michael had taken his rugby-mad brother to play outside Cardiff Arms Park.
Now Mrs Hall says the pain Alastair is going through "ripped at my heart" but she goes on to thank God for the fact they both still have a future.
She quotes the last line of one of her favourite songs, From a distance, by American singer/songwriter Nancy Griffith: "God is watching us, from a distance/You can run - but you cannot hide."
And she asks just one question: 'why?'
In an accompanying letter, another of Mrs Hall's sons said the message "was something she just had to write, in order to get it out of her system.
"The enclosed piece was written by my mother as she lies in her hospital bed, a victim of the Omagh bombing," he wrote.
"She requested me to send this to you and asks you to print it in her paper...
"She wants it printed in order the give the 'boys who did this' even the slightest idea of what she and hundreds of others have had to go through in the last week.
"The more people that can see this and unite together with the common aim of peace in Northern Ireland the better, and reading this will at least make people stop and think."
Mrs Hall's message comes as Prime Minister Tony Blair faces pressure to match Irish security initiatives launched in the wake of the Omagh bombing.
Measures under consideration are thought to include convicting on the evidence of a single police officer and allowing evidence from telephone tapping to be admissible in court.
And last night the RUC issued a TV appeal in a bid to get more information on a Vauxhall Cavalier which carried the bomb.
Police released a snapshot of the car taken by a victim of the Omagh bomb minutes before being killed.
The photograph of the scene in Market Street captured a red Vauxhall Cavalier just before it exploded.
The picture was processed by police after a disposable camera, which survived the blast, was discovered among the rubble.
Meanwhile, dozens of businesses in Omagh which were undamaged by last weekend's bomb are expected to stay closed today because their staff are among the dead and injured.
Michael Gaine, president of the town's Chamber of Commerce, said while it was vital that shops begin to reopen, many would be unable to do so.
Among the 27 patients still being treated at the Royal Victoria Hospital last night was Tracey Devine, the mother of 21-month-old Breda who was killed in the blast.
Mrs Devine is being treated for 60 per cent burns.
Her brother, Gary McGillion, and his fiancee, Donna Marie Keys are also in the hospital. They were to be married on Saturday.
Further Information
Publisher: THE IRISH NEWS
Ref: IN/0165
Published Date: 24-Aug-98
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