BRIAN READE REPORTS FROM THE STREETS OF OMAGH
Brian Reade Reports from the streets of Omagh
HE WAS a mountain of man - six feet tall, as much again wide and a hard, ruddy face that said he had seen it all.
And he wept like a day-old baby into the shovels he called hands.
His wife hadn't returned from her Saturday-afternoon shopping trip and the big man had been drawn to Omagh Leisure Centre to find out the worst after scouring the hospitals in vain.
Under RUC orders, he brought with him the most recent photograph of her he owned, because over in the makeshift mortuary most of the corpses had been mutilated beyond recognition And now he sat and waited for the police to return with the news that would leave him dead inside.
The bright new leisure centre, a temple to youth and life, had become a waiting room for death. Father Eddie Deeney watched helplessly: "Look at them. All waiting for news that none of them wants to hear." he said, with a face that had been up all night, shared a thousand tears and asked himself some difficult questions about his role in life.
A middle-aged woman staggered from behind a dark glass partition where she had just received counselling. She was propped up by a nurse and a St John's Ambulance worker. They kept stopping to kiss, hug and pat the back of her head. Her treasured photograph had obviously helped the police put one more name to one more dismembered corpse.
Relatives waiting to hear the worst huddled round in tight clusters on plastic canteen seats. A sea of dark hollow eyes highlighted by ashen faces. On the walls around them were 26 foolscap sheets listing the names of the 200-plus injured. They were scrawled hurriedly in biro underneath the names of the different hospitals which were battling to save their lives: Tyrone County, South Tyrone, Royal Victoria Belfast, Altnagelvin Derry, Omagh County and Enniskillen Erne.
Most of the names were female. Most of them born in the 1970s and 1980s. How gentlemanly of the butchers to allow the women and children to go first. People strolled in from the largely-deserted streets, most in a trance, clutching children to them like crutches. They stared in wide-eyed fear at the lists.
Before they had got past half a dozen sheets, they yelled out a familiar name, then clasped their hand to their mouth. And said nothing. Just let the tears roll.
"Words aren't much use are they?" asked Father Deeney. "All you can do is be here. That's all." He was right. Outside the shops, bundles of Sunday newspapers lay soaked and untouched, still in their string.
And the words that screamed from them -"Outrage. Savagery. Barbarism" never sounded more hollow than they did in Omagh yesterday.
This wasn't just the "worst day's killing in 30 years of The Troubles," as it was billed.
It was the worst death count since the 1920s, when the British Army and the Republicans were engaged in all-out war. But at least those involved volunteered, knew what to expect, died for a cause.
In Omagh, all we saw was women and children herded to the slaughter for no reason other than the gratification of blood-lust.
How can words describe it? In a week when the New Oxford Dictionary tried to invent new words for our language such as "Phwoah" and "happy-clappy" they would do us a bigger favour inventing words which attempt to describe and explain this barbaric futility.
BUT that would be to explain the inexplicable. And what goes on here now is undoubtedly that.
It rained from the second we landed at Belfast. A soft Irish rain, weeping slowly from the clouds.
Driving towards Omagh, we saw Northern Ireland in its true colours: green grass, grey skies and red blood - the national flag. But yesterday the red had flooded the grey and the green. This was its darkest day.
Looking at the scene in Market Street was to realise not just the English failure with language but also our total failure to offer a solution.
As helicopters pounded overhead, police picked their way through the street with plastic bags. Car and burglar alarms raged and the traffic lights flashed maniacally.
As you looked up the hill, you saw the courthouse, looking down on the wet rubble, giving its sober verdict. Behind it were the spires of the Catholic and Protestant cathedrals, symbols of a neat, proud middle class the troubles had by-passed.
There had been one bomb in Omagh before. In 1995 a small blast outside the courthouse left a security guard needing treatment for shock. Yesterday all 10,000 of its citizens needed that treatment.
The shops in the centre are neat, busy and profitable. It was easy to see how Market Street was bustling on Saturday afternoon.
And then the blast. And then an 18-month baby lying dead in the shop window of The Salad Bowl, while a boy's leg with his little shoe still on lay in the glass outside.
And when my mind's eye saw that, it saw Tony Blair embracing the Irish Premier, Bono raising the hands of Hume and Trimble, and that picture of a little kid scrawling PEACE on a wall which The Mirror splashed four years ago to herald the IRA pledge of a ceasefire and a better future. I looked at the debris and saw a signpost beneath a traffic light which said Belfast and Enniskillen. Omagh has become another name to rank with those. Words you say with pity and anger and regret. And as I relived the horror of Saturday. I realised the peace process doesn't amount to a hill of broken glass.
THAT after 30 years of trying, the men of blood had reached their ultimate destination. They had sunk to the lowest of the low.
On Saturday night. Omagh was numb. It couldn't take it in. There was nervous laughter in the pubs and on the streets. By yesterday it had started to turn to anger.
Entering the town was like walking in on a thousand personal nightmares. Everyone didn't just know someone. They knew a few.
People out for a family Sunday dinner in the Silverbirch Hotel talked less of the casualties they knew in hospital and more of "the bastards" who had put them there.
Not just how a couple of individuals could kill their neighbours but how they could wreck the dreams and wishes of an entire nation.
"The Real IRA, they call them", said mother of four Anne Anderson. "So that's what real men do, is it? Real bastards. I call them."
Her husband Raymond agreed, but turned his anger on the peace process: "We trusted the politicians and look where it got us. I voted Yes. I wish I'd voted No now. We trusted the peace process, only to see little kids have their limbs blown off.
"If this is peace, what must war be like?"
Many commentators thought after the three Quinn children were burnt in their beds that it couldn't get any worse. That there would never be any "never mores" again. Well, here's 28 more. Or is it 40? And the horrible thumping of inevitability in the pit of the stomach has given way to anger at yourself for thinking it could ever be different.
BUT this time there is no defence. You can't blame British colonial misrule for this.
This is sheer bloodlust. Mass murder by psychopaths.
For a decade I have travelled over here to try to bring positive stories out of the tragedy. To say peace is near, keep faith. But there will never truly be peace in this country.
We must look at it as an alcoholic looks at drink and say: "No one got killed today. But we don't know about tomorrow."
This land is afflicted with an illness.
There is no room for false optimism. We have to take it one day at a time. Only then will we not get the kicks in the stomach when the shrapnel claims fresh victims.
If Omagh teaches us anything, it that you can take nothing for granted because there is no depth to which the killers will not stoop.
Forget that, and those of you reading this in Derry or London or Manchester may be dead in a year, a month, even a day.
Ask the distraught of Omagh if you don't believe me.
HE WAS a mountain of man - six feet tall, as much again wide and a hard, ruddy face that said he had seen it all.
And he wept like a day-old baby into the shovels he called hands.
His wife hadn't returned from her Saturday-afternoon shopping trip and the big man had been drawn to Omagh Leisure Centre to find out the worst after scouring the hospitals in vain.
Under RUC orders, he brought with him the most recent photograph of her he owned, because over in the makeshift mortuary most of the corpses had been mutilated beyond recognition And now he sat and waited for the police to return with the news that would leave him dead inside.
The bright new leisure centre, a temple to youth and life, had become a waiting room for death. Father Eddie Deeney watched helplessly: "Look at them. All waiting for news that none of them wants to hear." he said, with a face that had been up all night, shared a thousand tears and asked himself some difficult questions about his role in life.
A middle-aged woman staggered from behind a dark glass partition where she had just received counselling. She was propped up by a nurse and a St John's Ambulance worker. They kept stopping to kiss, hug and pat the back of her head. Her treasured photograph had obviously helped the police put one more name to one more dismembered corpse.
Relatives waiting to hear the worst huddled round in tight clusters on plastic canteen seats. A sea of dark hollow eyes highlighted by ashen faces. On the walls around them were 26 foolscap sheets listing the names of the 200-plus injured. They were scrawled hurriedly in biro underneath the names of the different hospitals which were battling to save their lives: Tyrone County, South Tyrone, Royal Victoria Belfast, Altnagelvin Derry, Omagh County and Enniskillen Erne.
Most of the names were female. Most of them born in the 1970s and 1980s. How gentlemanly of the butchers to allow the women and children to go first. People strolled in from the largely-deserted streets, most in a trance, clutching children to them like crutches. They stared in wide-eyed fear at the lists.
Before they had got past half a dozen sheets, they yelled out a familiar name, then clasped their hand to their mouth. And said nothing. Just let the tears roll.
"Words aren't much use are they?" asked Father Deeney. "All you can do is be here. That's all." He was right. Outside the shops, bundles of Sunday newspapers lay soaked and untouched, still in their string.
And the words that screamed from them -"Outrage. Savagery. Barbarism" never sounded more hollow than they did in Omagh yesterday.
This wasn't just the "worst day's killing in 30 years of The Troubles," as it was billed.
It was the worst death count since the 1920s, when the British Army and the Republicans were engaged in all-out war. But at least those involved volunteered, knew what to expect, died for a cause.
In Omagh, all we saw was women and children herded to the slaughter for no reason other than the gratification of blood-lust.
How can words describe it? In a week when the New Oxford Dictionary tried to invent new words for our language such as "Phwoah" and "happy-clappy" they would do us a bigger favour inventing words which attempt to describe and explain this barbaric futility.
BUT that would be to explain the inexplicable. And what goes on here now is undoubtedly that.
It rained from the second we landed at Belfast. A soft Irish rain, weeping slowly from the clouds.
Driving towards Omagh, we saw Northern Ireland in its true colours: green grass, grey skies and red blood - the national flag. But yesterday the red had flooded the grey and the green. This was its darkest day.
Looking at the scene in Market Street was to realise not just the English failure with language but also our total failure to offer a solution.
As helicopters pounded overhead, police picked their way through the street with plastic bags. Car and burglar alarms raged and the traffic lights flashed maniacally.
As you looked up the hill, you saw the courthouse, looking down on the wet rubble, giving its sober verdict. Behind it were the spires of the Catholic and Protestant cathedrals, symbols of a neat, proud middle class the troubles had by-passed.
There had been one bomb in Omagh before. In 1995 a small blast outside the courthouse left a security guard needing treatment for shock. Yesterday all 10,000 of its citizens needed that treatment.
The shops in the centre are neat, busy and profitable. It was easy to see how Market Street was bustling on Saturday afternoon.
And then the blast. And then an 18-month baby lying dead in the shop window of The Salad Bowl, while a boy's leg with his little shoe still on lay in the glass outside.
And when my mind's eye saw that, it saw Tony Blair embracing the Irish Premier, Bono raising the hands of Hume and Trimble, and that picture of a little kid scrawling PEACE on a wall which The Mirror splashed four years ago to herald the IRA pledge of a ceasefire and a better future. I looked at the debris and saw a signpost beneath a traffic light which said Belfast and Enniskillen. Omagh has become another name to rank with those. Words you say with pity and anger and regret. And as I relived the horror of Saturday. I realised the peace process doesn't amount to a hill of broken glass.
THAT after 30 years of trying, the men of blood had reached their ultimate destination. They had sunk to the lowest of the low.
On Saturday night. Omagh was numb. It couldn't take it in. There was nervous laughter in the pubs and on the streets. By yesterday it had started to turn to anger.
Entering the town was like walking in on a thousand personal nightmares. Everyone didn't just know someone. They knew a few.
People out for a family Sunday dinner in the Silverbirch Hotel talked less of the casualties they knew in hospital and more of "the bastards" who had put them there.
Not just how a couple of individuals could kill their neighbours but how they could wreck the dreams and wishes of an entire nation.
"The Real IRA, they call them", said mother of four Anne Anderson. "So that's what real men do, is it? Real bastards. I call them."
Her husband Raymond agreed, but turned his anger on the peace process: "We trusted the politicians and look where it got us. I voted Yes. I wish I'd voted No now. We trusted the peace process, only to see little kids have their limbs blown off.
"If this is peace, what must war be like?"
Many commentators thought after the three Quinn children were burnt in their beds that it couldn't get any worse. That there would never be any "never mores" again. Well, here's 28 more. Or is it 40? And the horrible thumping of inevitability in the pit of the stomach has given way to anger at yourself for thinking it could ever be different.
BUT this time there is no defence. You can't blame British colonial misrule for this.
This is sheer bloodlust. Mass murder by psychopaths.
For a decade I have travelled over here to try to bring positive stories out of the tragedy. To say peace is near, keep faith. But there will never truly be peace in this country.
We must look at it as an alcoholic looks at drink and say: "No one got killed today. But we don't know about tomorrow."
This land is afflicted with an illness.
There is no room for false optimism. We have to take it one day at a time. Only then will we not get the kicks in the stomach when the shrapnel claims fresh victims.
If Omagh teaches us anything, it that you can take nothing for granted because there is no depth to which the killers will not stoop.
Forget that, and those of you reading this in Derry or London or Manchester may be dead in a year, a month, even a day.
Ask the distraught of Omagh if you don't believe me.
Further Information
Publisher: THE MIRROR
Ref: TM/014
Published Date: 17-Aug-98
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