WHY WORDS ARE SOMETIMES QUITE ENOUGH
Why words are sometimes quite enough
BOTH BBC and UTV were slow to get the cameras to Omagh. The explosion happened at three o'clock, and at six Mark Davenport was still sitting in the BBC newsroom in Belfast, talking about what was happening 75 miles away.
RTE had the first footage on its Six-O-One News, but it hadn't much to show. Some shaky shots of police and army land rovers, a street thick in rubble. No sign of the dead, no sign of the injured.
And so we were thrown back on words, from eye-witnesses and reporters.
None of them was in tears but they all had an incredulous, out-of-breath quality to their voices. They'd seen bodies, they'd seen blood, it was unbelievable. That it should have happened here in Omagh.
One man said he'd counted 15 bodies, and at the time it seemed a huge, heart-breaking figure.
A young man in a white t-shirt told of driving past the traffic lights, just missing the killing blast. He'd seen terrible things. An authentic
Omagh voice, clear and simple and frightened.
Maybe those in charge wouldn't let the cameras out to the Tyrone County Hospital. That's where they brought the dead, the dying, the maimed, until it could hold no more, before putting them in helicopters and ambulances for other centres.
At least that's what we were told, because we saw none of it.
UTV LIVE had a special, with Mike Nesbitt sounding too solemn to be convincing. Tony Blair came on, standing in front of a bookshelf, sounding like a man trying to give the impression of being grief-stricken. Maybe he was for all I know, but he looked like someone pretending.
Bertie Ahern, the other end of the emotional gamut, murmured his words of condemnation in gently complaining tones. More like a man unhappy with a refereeing decision than one facing up to mass slaughter.
Then Jane Loughrey came on UTV LIVE from Market Street, and with the dusk falling and her face lit with a yellow spotlight, she talked about what she'd heard and seen at the hospital. She wasn't crying but you could see that the tears might begin any minute. It walked a tightrope and was genuinely moving.
But the report that truly caught the tide of horror which engulfed Omagh on Saturday came on the NEWSLINE SPECIAL (BBC1) from Seamus Boyd.
Boyd was still at the hospital when he spoke, and because the cameras weren't allowed or chose not to go, there were no moving pictures. Just a still picture of Boyd himself, along with his muffled voice.
He was superb. He described hospital workers coming outside, pain-drunk, bewildered, trying to breathe normality for a few moments. He talked about people starved of information, frantic in their search for relatives. He talked about nurses emerging with bundles of sheets, and again and again the sheets were soaked in blood.
Not an excess adjective, no fake emotion. Just a fluent, sure-footed voice, telling the story. Sometimes, even on television, words are quite enough. Jude Collins
BOTH BBC and UTV were slow to get the cameras to Omagh. The explosion happened at three o'clock, and at six Mark Davenport was still sitting in the BBC newsroom in Belfast, talking about what was happening 75 miles away.
RTE had the first footage on its Six-O-One News, but it hadn't much to show. Some shaky shots of police and army land rovers, a street thick in rubble. No sign of the dead, no sign of the injured.
And so we were thrown back on words, from eye-witnesses and reporters.
None of them was in tears but they all had an incredulous, out-of-breath quality to their voices. They'd seen bodies, they'd seen blood, it was unbelievable. That it should have happened here in Omagh.
One man said he'd counted 15 bodies, and at the time it seemed a huge, heart-breaking figure.
A young man in a white t-shirt told of driving past the traffic lights, just missing the killing blast. He'd seen terrible things. An authentic
Omagh voice, clear and simple and frightened.
Maybe those in charge wouldn't let the cameras out to the Tyrone County Hospital. That's where they brought the dead, the dying, the maimed, until it could hold no more, before putting them in helicopters and ambulances for other centres.
At least that's what we were told, because we saw none of it.
UTV LIVE had a special, with Mike Nesbitt sounding too solemn to be convincing. Tony Blair came on, standing in front of a bookshelf, sounding like a man trying to give the impression of being grief-stricken. Maybe he was for all I know, but he looked like someone pretending.
Bertie Ahern, the other end of the emotional gamut, murmured his words of condemnation in gently complaining tones. More like a man unhappy with a refereeing decision than one facing up to mass slaughter.
Then Jane Loughrey came on UTV LIVE from Market Street, and with the dusk falling and her face lit with a yellow spotlight, she talked about what she'd heard and seen at the hospital. She wasn't crying but you could see that the tears might begin any minute. It walked a tightrope and was genuinely moving.
But the report that truly caught the tide of horror which engulfed Omagh on Saturday came on the NEWSLINE SPECIAL (BBC1) from Seamus Boyd.
Boyd was still at the hospital when he spoke, and because the cameras weren't allowed or chose not to go, there were no moving pictures. Just a still picture of Boyd himself, along with his muffled voice.
He was superb. He described hospital workers coming outside, pain-drunk, bewildered, trying to breathe normality for a few moments. He talked about people starved of information, frantic in their search for relatives. He talked about nurses emerging with bundles of sheets, and again and again the sheets were soaked in blood.
Not an excess adjective, no fake emotion. Just a fluent, sure-footed voice, telling the story. Sometimes, even on television, words are quite enough. Jude Collins
Further Information
Publisher: THE IRISH NEWS
Ref: IN/0622
Published Date: 17-Aug-98
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