PRAYERS URGED FOR THOSE WHOSE LIVES HAVE BEEN MARRED
Prayers urged for those whose lives have been marred
by Greg Harkin and Colette Keane
PRESIDENT Mary McAleese choked back tears after visiting the scene of the carnage, yesterday, where she spoke with members of the emergency services.
She called on those responsible for the mass murder to hand themselves over to the authorities as the full enormity of what had happened began to sink in. The victims, she said, had been going about the humblest of domestic chores on a sunny afternoon when they were cut down in their dozens by the bombers.
"You can see the bags of shopping that will never ever see home now lying on the pavement, the shoes lying on the pavement.
"I talked to a police officer there, an extraordinary man who spent yesterday - he was within sight of the bomb - ferrying people, putting them into anything with wheels on to take them to hospital.
"And there he is still working, still calmly going about the professional business of being a police officer, bringing hope in a situation where there is so little."
A posse of serial killers are on the loose, the President said, as she tried to grapple with the enormity of the bombing. She was sceptical of any remorse the bombers might feel given the awful scale of the carnage and doubted that they, like some people hoped, would look with horror at what they have accomplished.
"I would have my doubts as to how open these people are to any kind of debate; they are obviously immune to it and I think we have, what you might describe as a posse of serial killers on the loose.
They are flying in the face of the express will of the people; expressed through the referenda held both North and South only a very short time ago.
The President felt the public would welcome the strong reassurances from both Governments and from police North and South that they were absolutely adamant that this manic minority who were out of the control would be hunted down and brought to justice as quickly as possible.
President McAleese called for everyone committed to the peace process to gather around it and recommit to it a thousand-fold as a testimony to our care and concern for the people of Omagh. She said her initial reaction on hearing the news had been the most awful feeling of sickness and nausea, and as the death toll began to rise, she remembered the day when her own father's business was car-bombed 25 years ago.
One woman died in that incident, a mother of three young children. She recalled how shortly after her inauguration she had received a letter from the woman's parents telling her how unhealed and raw the wounds were yet, 25 years later.
"This is what the people of Omagh now face. No matter what peace is brought by the Good Friday Agreement for the people of Omagh it is now too late. They are facing into awful broken lives that have to be mended and have to be healed, if they ever can be. I ask that people gather up all those feeling of anger, all the distress, all the numbness, and turn them into prayers for those whose lives are marred in a way that defies words and defies description."
Courtesy of Irish Examiner
by Greg Harkin and Colette Keane
PRESIDENT Mary McAleese choked back tears after visiting the scene of the carnage, yesterday, where she spoke with members of the emergency services.
She called on those responsible for the mass murder to hand themselves over to the authorities as the full enormity of what had happened began to sink in. The victims, she said, had been going about the humblest of domestic chores on a sunny afternoon when they were cut down in their dozens by the bombers.
"You can see the bags of shopping that will never ever see home now lying on the pavement, the shoes lying on the pavement.
"I talked to a police officer there, an extraordinary man who spent yesterday - he was within sight of the bomb - ferrying people, putting them into anything with wheels on to take them to hospital.
"And there he is still working, still calmly going about the professional business of being a police officer, bringing hope in a situation where there is so little."
A posse of serial killers are on the loose, the President said, as she tried to grapple with the enormity of the bombing. She was sceptical of any remorse the bombers might feel given the awful scale of the carnage and doubted that they, like some people hoped, would look with horror at what they have accomplished.
"I would have my doubts as to how open these people are to any kind of debate; they are obviously immune to it and I think we have, what you might describe as a posse of serial killers on the loose.
They are flying in the face of the express will of the people; expressed through the referenda held both North and South only a very short time ago.
The President felt the public would welcome the strong reassurances from both Governments and from police North and South that they were absolutely adamant that this manic minority who were out of the control would be hunted down and brought to justice as quickly as possible.
President McAleese called for everyone committed to the peace process to gather around it and recommit to it a thousand-fold as a testimony to our care and concern for the people of Omagh. She said her initial reaction on hearing the news had been the most awful feeling of sickness and nausea, and as the death toll began to rise, she remembered the day when her own father's business was car-bombed 25 years ago.
One woman died in that incident, a mother of three young children. She recalled how shortly after her inauguration she had received a letter from the woman's parents telling her how unhealed and raw the wounds were yet, 25 years later.
"This is what the people of Omagh now face. No matter what peace is brought by the Good Friday Agreement for the people of Omagh it is now too late. They are facing into awful broken lives that have to be mended and have to be healed, if they ever can be. I ask that people gather up all those feeling of anger, all the distress, all the numbness, and turn them into prayers for those whose lives are marred in a way that defies words and defies description."
Courtesy of Irish Examiner
Further Information
Publisher: THE EXAMINER
Ref: TEX/006
Published Date: 17-Aug-98
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