DAD'S PAIN STILL RAW A DECADE ON
Dad's pain still raw a decade on
BY DAVID YOUNG
TEN years on from the Omagh bomb and Godfrey Wilson's pain is as raw as it was that bleak day when a policeman told him his daughter Lorraine had died.
He knows some claim the Tyrone town has recovered and put the past behind it. But for him that isn't an option.
Like many victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles he feels the world has moved on without him.
"The victims have been left behind," says the 52-year-old.
"We are in a rut and we can't get out of it. I've met victims who've lost loved ones over 30/35 years and they're still in the same rut."
And with the pain there is anger, anger that no one has yet been brought to justice for the Real IRA attack that claimed the life of his 15-year-old daughter and the lives of so many other innocent people.
"I was brought up to believe that democracy and justice was the road to go if somebody offended or hurt you. But where is the rule of justice?
"You have nobody put in jail for the murder of 31 innocent people (one of the 29 victim's was pregnant with twins), call it political murder but murder is murder no matter what way you look at it.
"It was premeditated murder, they sat and plotted and planned and created a situation where innocent people were going to lose their lives."
The Provisional IRA was on ceasefire when Omagh happened and leading Sinn Fein figures, who months before it had signed the historic Good Friday Agreement peace accord, condemned the attack outright.
But Mr Wilson is deeply sceptical of the new political dispensation in Northern Ireland and resentful that self-proclaimed former IRA men now sit in government.
"The system doesn't work for victims of terrorism, it's not allowed to work, nobody wants to catch these people and any people who were in jail on the Good Friday Agreement have been let out on the whim of getting terrorists into government."
He added: "I've thought about it myself, over the years I've seen other people been injured through terrorism and I had this mindset in my head that somebody in that family or somebody in that area has been involved in terrorism and have been smited for it.
"I have discovered now that I've never been a part of terrorism, I never want to be a part of terrorism and yet my family has been smited.
"I realise now people get hurt through sheer negligence of terrorism, through sheer destruction of terrorism and you don't have to be part of any regime to be hurt here.
"It's terrorists trying to make a political point and they're willing to hurt anybody to do it."
Fifteen hours after the Real IRA bomb ripped the heart out of the town centre, the factory worker was still waiting for news of his beloved daughter.
He had maintained a helpless vigil in a nearby leisure centre all night, praying the Omagh High School pupil was lying unconscious in some hospital bed, unable to tell anyone who she was, but alive.
As the minutes ebbed away, hope gradually faded before he was given the news of his daughter being one of the bomb victims at 6am the following morning.
Mr Wilson admits the anniversary will be hard, but no harder than any other day since he lost Lorraine.
"To me it's just another day," he said.
BY DAVID YOUNG
TEN years on from the Omagh bomb and Godfrey Wilson's pain is as raw as it was that bleak day when a policeman told him his daughter Lorraine had died.
He knows some claim the Tyrone town has recovered and put the past behind it. But for him that isn't an option.
Like many victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles he feels the world has moved on without him.
"The victims have been left behind," says the 52-year-old.
"We are in a rut and we can't get out of it. I've met victims who've lost loved ones over 30/35 years and they're still in the same rut."
And with the pain there is anger, anger that no one has yet been brought to justice for the Real IRA attack that claimed the life of his 15-year-old daughter and the lives of so many other innocent people.
"I was brought up to believe that democracy and justice was the road to go if somebody offended or hurt you. But where is the rule of justice?
"You have nobody put in jail for the murder of 31 innocent people (one of the 29 victim's was pregnant with twins), call it political murder but murder is murder no matter what way you look at it.
"It was premeditated murder, they sat and plotted and planned and created a situation where innocent people were going to lose their lives."
The Provisional IRA was on ceasefire when Omagh happened and leading Sinn Fein figures, who months before it had signed the historic Good Friday Agreement peace accord, condemned the attack outright.
But Mr Wilson is deeply sceptical of the new political dispensation in Northern Ireland and resentful that self-proclaimed former IRA men now sit in government.
"The system doesn't work for victims of terrorism, it's not allowed to work, nobody wants to catch these people and any people who were in jail on the Good Friday Agreement have been let out on the whim of getting terrorists into government."
He added: "I've thought about it myself, over the years I've seen other people been injured through terrorism and I had this mindset in my head that somebody in that family or somebody in that area has been involved in terrorism and have been smited for it.
"I have discovered now that I've never been a part of terrorism, I never want to be a part of terrorism and yet my family has been smited.
"I realise now people get hurt through sheer negligence of terrorism, through sheer destruction of terrorism and you don't have to be part of any regime to be hurt here.
"It's terrorists trying to make a political point and they're willing to hurt anybody to do it."
Fifteen hours after the Real IRA bomb ripped the heart out of the town centre, the factory worker was still waiting for news of his beloved daughter.
He had maintained a helpless vigil in a nearby leisure centre all night, praying the Omagh High School pupil was lying unconscious in some hospital bed, unable to tell anyone who she was, but alive.
As the minutes ebbed away, hope gradually faded before he was given the news of his daughter being one of the bomb victims at 6am the following morning.
Mr Wilson admits the anniversary will be hard, but no harder than any other day since he lost Lorraine.
"To me it's just another day," he said.
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL10An/11
Published Date: 14-Aug-08
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