MEMORIAL WORDING: IT'S LIKE TAKING A SLEDGEHAMMER TO CRACK A NUT
Memorial wording: it's like 'taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut...
Sir,
It seems to me that the recent appointment of an Independent Facilitation Team to elicit a suitable form of words as the inscription for the new Omagh bomb memorial sculpture is like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I realise that the Memorial Working Group, chaired by the chief executive of Omagh District Council, is anxious to devise a set of words which most people can feel comfortable with - particularly the republican movement, which has obviously taken exception to the phrase 'dissident republican car bomb' on the stone in the memorial garden.
Why, I ask, is it so important to attempt to assuage the sensitivities of these folk and all their supporters so long after the atrocity was perpetrated in the town?
In my honest opinion, it would take a latter-day Solomon to come up with a form of words that in Dr. Dunlop's opinion 'everyone can support'.
More unnecessary expense will be incurred, as the team of facilitators travel round the Omagh district, perhaps to Buncrana and even to Spain - as we understand everyone affected by the bomb is to be interviewed. What, I ask once again, is so unacceptable about the simple inscription chosen by the bereaved families, which conveys concisely the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what really happened in Lower Market Street on August 15, 1998?
I entirely agree with the views expressed by the chairman of the Support and Self Help Group, none of whom incidentally was invited to the launch when the facilitation team was unveiled to the press.
It was certainly disrespectful of those responsible for calling the meeting, not to have asked the chairman along, even if it was felt he might not be willing to attend. I wonder who actually decided to appoint three mediators.
Was any member of Omagh District Council involved in the appointment, or was even made aware of the press conference taking place? One member of the general public, a bereaved relative, managed to find out the date, the time and location of the meeting. Did a little bird inform him in advance? He was also given a fairly lengthy interview in a local paper, most of which had little to do with the facilitators' brief.
It would be good to know just how many people in Omagh and further afield are in favour of the elaborate scheme envisaged to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the atrocity in Omagh or, for that matter, the painstaking procedure that is being devised in order to come up with a set of words, as an inscription which avoids disturbing the sensitivities of Irish republicans.
Yours sincerely,
W Breen,
Hospital Road,
Omagh
Sir,
It seems to me that the recent appointment of an Independent Facilitation Team to elicit a suitable form of words as the inscription for the new Omagh bomb memorial sculpture is like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I realise that the Memorial Working Group, chaired by the chief executive of Omagh District Council, is anxious to devise a set of words which most people can feel comfortable with - particularly the republican movement, which has obviously taken exception to the phrase 'dissident republican car bomb' on the stone in the memorial garden.
Why, I ask, is it so important to attempt to assuage the sensitivities of these folk and all their supporters so long after the atrocity was perpetrated in the town?
In my honest opinion, it would take a latter-day Solomon to come up with a form of words that in Dr. Dunlop's opinion 'everyone can support'.
More unnecessary expense will be incurred, as the team of facilitators travel round the Omagh district, perhaps to Buncrana and even to Spain - as we understand everyone affected by the bomb is to be interviewed. What, I ask once again, is so unacceptable about the simple inscription chosen by the bereaved families, which conveys concisely the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what really happened in Lower Market Street on August 15, 1998?
I entirely agree with the views expressed by the chairman of the Support and Self Help Group, none of whom incidentally was invited to the launch when the facilitation team was unveiled to the press.
It was certainly disrespectful of those responsible for calling the meeting, not to have asked the chairman along, even if it was felt he might not be willing to attend. I wonder who actually decided to appoint three mediators.
Was any member of Omagh District Council involved in the appointment, or was even made aware of the press conference taking place? One member of the general public, a bereaved relative, managed to find out the date, the time and location of the meeting. Did a little bird inform him in advance? He was also given a fairly lengthy interview in a local paper, most of which had little to do with the facilitators' brief.
It would be good to know just how many people in Omagh and further afield are in favour of the elaborate scheme envisaged to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the atrocity in Omagh or, for that matter, the painstaking procedure that is being devised in order to come up with a set of words, as an inscription which avoids disturbing the sensitivities of Irish republicans.
Yours sincerely,
W Breen,
Hospital Road,
Omagh
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC/1896
Published Date: 15-Nov-07
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