IN THE NAME OF OMAGH
In the name of Omagh
TO OUTSIDERS, reared in a come easy, go easy environment, it just seemed like plain and simple common sense.
And despite decades of media coverage of the complexities of Northern Ireland, they still marvelled that it had taken us 30 years to reach the conclusion that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line.
But we knew different, didn't we? To us, it was such a startling and daring development that when we voted for the Good Friday Agreement, we half suspected that someone was going to end up crucified in consequence.
But we thought we'd plumbed the depths when three little boys were burned alive in Ballymoney. None of us could have bargained for the Calvary of Omagh. This past week, so many words have been so movingly and eloquently written and spoken about the terror and the pity of that day. And there will be many more to come before a Province accustomed to atrocity can begin to weave this one into the fabric of its grief.
The suffering, the compassion, the courage and the dignity of the quiet country people of Omagh have deeply touched the entire world.
Now the dead have been tenderly buried, the first, faint stirrings of a community preparing to pick up the cruelly shattered pieces of its life are starting, tentatively to emerge. It is a process which, in one way, I dread. For the awful truth is that so far, only in the face of such spectacular and appalling agony have our more divisive politicians been silenced. And even then, not all of them. Omagh may have slowed them
down when the depth of public feeling became apparent, but in the bomb's aftermath I felt sickened when some were quick to blame the Agreement for the carnage.
Provisions for the early release of prisoners, they said, had led directly to the bombers thinking they could get away with it, if caught.
Nonsense! It was made crystal clear from the outset that any perpetrators of terrorist acts committed AFTER the signing of the Agreement will rot in jail for the full duration.
This latest, worst atrocity happened because the Peace Process looks like succeeding. Soon, Assembly members will meet at Stormont to forge a government. And if any of them starts scoring unseemly political points, they will be spitting on the graves of the Omagh dead.
TO OUTSIDERS, reared in a come easy, go easy environment, it just seemed like plain and simple common sense.
And despite decades of media coverage of the complexities of Northern Ireland, they still marvelled that it had taken us 30 years to reach the conclusion that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line.
But we knew different, didn't we? To us, it was such a startling and daring development that when we voted for the Good Friday Agreement, we half suspected that someone was going to end up crucified in consequence.
But we thought we'd plumbed the depths when three little boys were burned alive in Ballymoney. None of us could have bargained for the Calvary of Omagh. This past week, so many words have been so movingly and eloquently written and spoken about the terror and the pity of that day. And there will be many more to come before a Province accustomed to atrocity can begin to weave this one into the fabric of its grief.
The suffering, the compassion, the courage and the dignity of the quiet country people of Omagh have deeply touched the entire world.
Now the dead have been tenderly buried, the first, faint stirrings of a community preparing to pick up the cruelly shattered pieces of its life are starting, tentatively to emerge. It is a process which, in one way, I dread. For the awful truth is that so far, only in the face of such spectacular and appalling agony have our more divisive politicians been silenced. And even then, not all of them. Omagh may have slowed them
down when the depth of public feeling became apparent, but in the bomb's aftermath I felt sickened when some were quick to blame the Agreement for the carnage.
Provisions for the early release of prisoners, they said, had led directly to the bombers thinking they could get away with it, if caught.
Nonsense! It was made crystal clear from the outset that any perpetrators of terrorist acts committed AFTER the signing of the Agreement will rot in jail for the full duration.
This latest, worst atrocity happened because the Peace Process looks like succeeding. Soon, Assembly members will meet at Stormont to forge a government. And if any of them starts scoring unseemly political points, they will be spitting on the graves of the Omagh dead.
Further Information
Publisher: SUNDAY LIFE
Ref: SL/048
Published Date: 23-Aug-98
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