THE DRIP DRIP OF THE RAIN MIRRORED ENDLESS FUNERALS
The drip, drip of the rain mirrored endless funerals
Alf McCreary
ON THE day of the funerals of the last of the Omagh dead, the town centre was as silent and dark as the grave. Though it was the height of summer, the weather mirrored the sombre mood as dark clouds closed in, and a steady drizzle saturated the floral tributes placed lovingly on the streets in memory of the dead.
Every shop on the Main Street was closed as a mark of respect. In the emergency co-ordinating centre, near the Courthouse from which people had moved last Saturday into the worst of the car bomb blast, mourners were still signing books of condolences.
On the same table lay a magnificent wreath of red roses and white lilies, sent from Spain in memory of the Spanish who had been killed and maimed in the explosion.
Outside the building there was a flowerbed of wreaths, from Orpington, from Kingston-upon-Hull and from many other places.
Further down the street, near the epicentre of the blast there were more bouquets outside shops whose staff had walked to their deaths while trying to reach safety.
The messages told their own story. "Lost for words", said one; "Why?" asked another.
Yet another carried a plaintive plea: "All we are saying is give peace a chance."
There were wreaths from the Fire Service, from the Gardai at Ennis. And from a group of Dubliners there was a wreath of orange-coloured lilies and yellow and white daises with the inscription: "We came because we care."
The macabre geography of last Saturday's mistaken rush for sanctuary was inescapable. The shops at the bottom half of the street were wrecked. Some of those in the top half bore tributes to the dead and injured who had worked there.
A small white teddy bear, sodden with rain, had fallen off one of the wreaths and lay spread-eagled, mouth and nose, on the wet pavement.
The urge was inescapable to pick it up, and to place it gently in its rightful place, as a futile gesture of trying to pick up all the little ones who had died and had been maimed, and trying to pretend that this was only a nightmare.
Tragically the nightmare was real, in the harsh light of this awful summer's day. On Wednesday there had been 16 funerals. On Thursday there were eight more. The drip, drip of the rain and the cold wind chilled the bones, but the chill in the heart was deeper still.
Silence was everywhere, amid the reminders of ordinary life - a poster for a concert, the sight of a small child in a buggy, so reminiscent of all the other small children in buggies who had not been so fortunate. There was an air of deep, deep desolation in the heart of Omagh.
Desolation does not change. As a writer who has covered too many atrocities in my time, I remembered the same atmosphere of stunned silence and heartbreak in my native village, Bessbrook, after the Kingsmills massacres.
There was the same stunned silence and heartbreak in Londonderry/Derry on the days after Bloody Sunday.
In the middle of Omagh I thought of all the victims of violence I had known after so many outrages - the Abercorn, Bloody Friday, Enniskillen and so many other scenes of carnage. I winced at the suffering which the people of Omagh will still have to face.
Desolation does not change, and yet the outrage in Omagh seems different. The scale of the individual and community suffering is absolutely staggering.
So too is the range of the victims - Protestants and Roman Catholics, Unionist and Nationalist, young and old, locals and visitors.
The deaths of so many young people in particularly is hard to bear; so too are the horrific injuries of those whose lives will never be the same again.
Omagh is different too because of the widespread revulsion at the actions of a minority of fanatics whose idiocy and moral bankruptcy is exposed for all the world to see.
There has been revulsion in the past, but never on this scale.
The cold fury of the people has galvanised the politicians to take security measures which were thought too Draconian only a short time ago.
The pity is that it took 28 dead and countless injured in Omagh to make them do so.
The widespread outrage at the crude strategy and obscene barbarity of the so-called Real IRA, and their fellow travellers and all other paramilitaries is underlining that ordinary people from all backgrounds have had enough of all violence.
Omagh is different because it may yet prove to be the final frontier for those who ignore human decency and who use homemade fertiliser bombs instead of their brains.
Time will pass, memories will fade but all of us who want peace must never forget Omagh, or Enniskillen or Bloody Friday or all the other bloody days in our debased calendar.
On the bridge of Omagh, above yet another rain-soaked carpet of flowers, someone had pinned a notice addressed to the "Irish men and women who planted the bomb in Omagh". It said: "Do not do this again to any town. Do not do this again to any man, woman or child. We have always stood together, Catholics and Protestants in good times and in bad. In grief we stand together now, united against you."
In the midst of the cold and the drizzle I looked at these words for a long time, and then I closed my rain-spattered notebook and slowing walked away.
There was nothing more to be said.
Alf McCreary
ON THE day of the funerals of the last of the Omagh dead, the town centre was as silent and dark as the grave. Though it was the height of summer, the weather mirrored the sombre mood as dark clouds closed in, and a steady drizzle saturated the floral tributes placed lovingly on the streets in memory of the dead.
Every shop on the Main Street was closed as a mark of respect. In the emergency co-ordinating centre, near the Courthouse from which people had moved last Saturday into the worst of the car bomb blast, mourners were still signing books of condolences.
On the same table lay a magnificent wreath of red roses and white lilies, sent from Spain in memory of the Spanish who had been killed and maimed in the explosion.
Outside the building there was a flowerbed of wreaths, from Orpington, from Kingston-upon-Hull and from many other places.
Further down the street, near the epicentre of the blast there were more bouquets outside shops whose staff had walked to their deaths while trying to reach safety.
The messages told their own story. "Lost for words", said one; "Why?" asked another.
Yet another carried a plaintive plea: "All we are saying is give peace a chance."
There were wreaths from the Fire Service, from the Gardai at Ennis. And from a group of Dubliners there was a wreath of orange-coloured lilies and yellow and white daises with the inscription: "We came because we care."
The macabre geography of last Saturday's mistaken rush for sanctuary was inescapable. The shops at the bottom half of the street were wrecked. Some of those in the top half bore tributes to the dead and injured who had worked there.
A small white teddy bear, sodden with rain, had fallen off one of the wreaths and lay spread-eagled, mouth and nose, on the wet pavement.
The urge was inescapable to pick it up, and to place it gently in its rightful place, as a futile gesture of trying to pick up all the little ones who had died and had been maimed, and trying to pretend that this was only a nightmare.
Tragically the nightmare was real, in the harsh light of this awful summer's day. On Wednesday there had been 16 funerals. On Thursday there were eight more. The drip, drip of the rain and the cold wind chilled the bones, but the chill in the heart was deeper still.
Silence was everywhere, amid the reminders of ordinary life - a poster for a concert, the sight of a small child in a buggy, so reminiscent of all the other small children in buggies who had not been so fortunate. There was an air of deep, deep desolation in the heart of Omagh.
Desolation does not change. As a writer who has covered too many atrocities in my time, I remembered the same atmosphere of stunned silence and heartbreak in my native village, Bessbrook, after the Kingsmills massacres.
There was the same stunned silence and heartbreak in Londonderry/Derry on the days after Bloody Sunday.
In the middle of Omagh I thought of all the victims of violence I had known after so many outrages - the Abercorn, Bloody Friday, Enniskillen and so many other scenes of carnage. I winced at the suffering which the people of Omagh will still have to face.
Desolation does not change, and yet the outrage in Omagh seems different. The scale of the individual and community suffering is absolutely staggering.
So too is the range of the victims - Protestants and Roman Catholics, Unionist and Nationalist, young and old, locals and visitors.
The deaths of so many young people in particularly is hard to bear; so too are the horrific injuries of those whose lives will never be the same again.
Omagh is different too because of the widespread revulsion at the actions of a minority of fanatics whose idiocy and moral bankruptcy is exposed for all the world to see.
There has been revulsion in the past, but never on this scale.
The cold fury of the people has galvanised the politicians to take security measures which were thought too Draconian only a short time ago.
The pity is that it took 28 dead and countless injured in Omagh to make them do so.
The widespread outrage at the crude strategy and obscene barbarity of the so-called Real IRA, and their fellow travellers and all other paramilitaries is underlining that ordinary people from all backgrounds have had enough of all violence.
Omagh is different because it may yet prove to be the final frontier for those who ignore human decency and who use homemade fertiliser bombs instead of their brains.
Time will pass, memories will fade but all of us who want peace must never forget Omagh, or Enniskillen or Bloody Friday or all the other bloody days in our debased calendar.
On the bridge of Omagh, above yet another rain-soaked carpet of flowers, someone had pinned a notice addressed to the "Irish men and women who planted the bomb in Omagh". It said: "Do not do this again to any town. Do not do this again to any man, woman or child. We have always stood together, Catholics and Protestants in good times and in bad. In grief we stand together now, united against you."
In the midst of the cold and the drizzle I looked at these words for a long time, and then I closed my rain-spattered notebook and slowing walked away.
There was nothing more to be said.
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/095
Published Date: 22-Aug-98
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