AN AUGUST DIARY
An August Diary
SOMEONE once observed that a week in politics is a long time; a week in the wake of what happens in the absence of politics can seem like an eternity. These are the impressions of one citizen of Omagh, thankfully unscathed, but not unmoved. The excerpts from poems, novels, songs and other matter will not, I hope, be felt to be intrusive.
Sunday 16:
After a morning spent making and receiving phone calls, down to High Street in the mid-afternoon. The silence is so pervasive that you can hear the Footfalls of people walking the streets. No birds sing, the silence is eerie. A young man tells me of how he had done his best to pull the injured from the rubble; he could not sleep the night before, despite having downed 'the guts of a bottle of spirits'. An Israeli journalist who had left Jerusalem earlier that day saw parallels between our situation here, and recent events in the Middle East. I left him to it. Someone suggested we go down to the Campsie side. To do this you had to do a wide detour. We stopped at the Leisure Centre, not at the Hospital.
"This is what life looks like after the bomb . ... Did I say life?
On the sidewalk a lump of clothes with the blood running out of it. People flat on the sidewalk as if a steamroller had rolled over them. A priest tells of two legs sticking out of a pile of rubbish, of shattered bodies, you could see the life going out of them. He anointed what he found there. In this car there was a body decapitated, but no way of knowing whether it was a man or woman"
Benedict Kiely 'Nothing Happens in Carmincross' (1985)
Monday 17:
A list of the fatalities is released. You did not realise until later in the week how many of the families you know, and how the cross-stitches of the community make up the broad tapestry of life in Omagh and West Tyrone. The bunches of flowers with their accompanying messages of sympathy begin to pile up. Local people are outraged at opportunist, negative politicians who come to the town, and seek to use the atrocity as a weapon with which to attack the Good Friday Agreement. The Secretary of State visits the Emergency office in High Street, with a remarkable lack of formality. The world's media seems to have descended upon the town. The townsfolk wish that Omagh had remained in obscurity rather than to be associated in so many minds with terror and murder.
"We are all from Omagh and we'll have you know,
'Tis the world's best spot, no matter where you go.
Life is calm and peaceful there, without much fuss
Yet in all the world no place is half so dear to us."
Frank McCrory 'Omagh' c.1960
Tuesday 18:
The sunniest day of the summer, but no-one has the heart to take any relish from it. Marksmen with long-sighted rifles are glimpsed on the roof of the Courthouse, the Post Office, and the banks at the top of High Street, in preparation for the visit from the Prince of Wales. There are no cheers, the atmosphere is subdued, the Prince is dutiful. Thousands assemble at the Drumragh carpark for a brief, solemn vigil. Many local people ponder how but for some circumstance on the fateful day they could have been victims themselves. It would not to be too strong a word to call it guilt. The name of Omagh has joined the litany of infamy of the twentieth century: Guernica, Lidice, Serajevo, Oklahoma City....
"Thrice happy and blessed were the days of my childhood,
And happy the hours we wandered from school,
By old Mountjoy's forest, our dear native wildwood,
On the green flowery banks of the serpentine Strule."
Anon. Early 19th Century
Wednesday 19:
The community begins to bury its dead. The coverage by the locally-based media is sympathetic. Stories are related of the crass and callous
behaviour of journalists and cameramen from British and American newspapers and television stations. Some militant organisations hint at calling a ceasefire, others are more ambiguous. A wise Omagh man, my godfather, recalls a dictum of Daniel O'Connell that no cause in
Ireland is worth the shedding of a teaspoonful of blood. The political rhetoric of implacable dogmatists rings hollow in the light of the terrible suffering of Omagh.
"Ireland without her people is nothing to me, and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for 'Ireland' and yet can pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and suffering, the shame and degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland, aye wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a liar in his heart."
James Connolly
Thursday 20:
Three funerals virtually overlap in Church Street, Omagh, with a fourth at Drumragh. The fine weather has receded and in the ceaseless rain all nature seems to be in mourning, the churches never built to contain all of the mourners many of whom stand huddled under umbrella in town street and on country lanes.
"A glooming peace this morning with it brings:
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things:
Some shall be pardon'd and some punished."
William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. 1595
In the evening, on RTE, an Omagh man, whom I have always associated with the lighter side of local life, describes the trauma experienced by the local people. He makes the point that there are people walking about the town with diagnosable emotional disorders, and who are not aware of the fact. The passing of the days only makes the pain worse.
Friday 21:
The restoration of the human fabric will take a long time. At a more concrete level some consideration is already being given to the physical replacement of bricks and mortar. A local politician, himself bereaved, discourses on the radio as to how painful memories could be reduced in the reconstruction.
'They made a decree that lawyers never
Should think their records dated duly
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
'And so long after what happened here,
On the Twenty-second of July
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six,
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children's last retreat
They called it the Pied Piper's Street
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labour . . .
They wrote the story on a column
And on the great church window painted
The same to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away
And there it stands to this very day.
Robert Browning The Pied Piper of Hamelin. cl850
Saturday 22:
A vast concourse assembles in the centre of Omagh. Clergy speak with eloquence, dignity and restraint. Readings are given also in Irish, and in Spanish. The names of the dead are solemnly read out. The gathering, and the wider radio and television audience are given an opportunity to consider the manifold agencies which have been involved, and will continue to be involved, in helping the stricken, not least the tremendous work of the local council. The number present is, at the least estimate, twice the population of the town. A young girl sings:
"You can have my heart
If you don't mind broken things:
You can have my life.
If you don't mind these tears:
Well, I heard that you make old things new.
So I give all these pieces all to you
If you want it, you can have my heart."
Julie Miller
For the most of us a consolation, for the bereaved and injured a hymn of hope, and for the dead, a requiem.
By Raymond na Hatta
SOMEONE once observed that a week in politics is a long time; a week in the wake of what happens in the absence of politics can seem like an eternity. These are the impressions of one citizen of Omagh, thankfully unscathed, but not unmoved. The excerpts from poems, novels, songs and other matter will not, I hope, be felt to be intrusive.
Sunday 16:
After a morning spent making and receiving phone calls, down to High Street in the mid-afternoon. The silence is so pervasive that you can hear the Footfalls of people walking the streets. No birds sing, the silence is eerie. A young man tells me of how he had done his best to pull the injured from the rubble; he could not sleep the night before, despite having downed 'the guts of a bottle of spirits'. An Israeli journalist who had left Jerusalem earlier that day saw parallels between our situation here, and recent events in the Middle East. I left him to it. Someone suggested we go down to the Campsie side. To do this you had to do a wide detour. We stopped at the Leisure Centre, not at the Hospital.
"This is what life looks like after the bomb . ... Did I say life?
On the sidewalk a lump of clothes with the blood running out of it. People flat on the sidewalk as if a steamroller had rolled over them. A priest tells of two legs sticking out of a pile of rubbish, of shattered bodies, you could see the life going out of them. He anointed what he found there. In this car there was a body decapitated, but no way of knowing whether it was a man or woman"
Benedict Kiely 'Nothing Happens in Carmincross' (1985)
Monday 17:
A list of the fatalities is released. You did not realise until later in the week how many of the families you know, and how the cross-stitches of the community make up the broad tapestry of life in Omagh and West Tyrone. The bunches of flowers with their accompanying messages of sympathy begin to pile up. Local people are outraged at opportunist, negative politicians who come to the town, and seek to use the atrocity as a weapon with which to attack the Good Friday Agreement. The Secretary of State visits the Emergency office in High Street, with a remarkable lack of formality. The world's media seems to have descended upon the town. The townsfolk wish that Omagh had remained in obscurity rather than to be associated in so many minds with terror and murder.
"We are all from Omagh and we'll have you know,
'Tis the world's best spot, no matter where you go.
Life is calm and peaceful there, without much fuss
Yet in all the world no place is half so dear to us."
Frank McCrory 'Omagh' c.1960
Tuesday 18:
The sunniest day of the summer, but no-one has the heart to take any relish from it. Marksmen with long-sighted rifles are glimpsed on the roof of the Courthouse, the Post Office, and the banks at the top of High Street, in preparation for the visit from the Prince of Wales. There are no cheers, the atmosphere is subdued, the Prince is dutiful. Thousands assemble at the Drumragh carpark for a brief, solemn vigil. Many local people ponder how but for some circumstance on the fateful day they could have been victims themselves. It would not to be too strong a word to call it guilt. The name of Omagh has joined the litany of infamy of the twentieth century: Guernica, Lidice, Serajevo, Oklahoma City....
"Thrice happy and blessed were the days of my childhood,
And happy the hours we wandered from school,
By old Mountjoy's forest, our dear native wildwood,
On the green flowery banks of the serpentine Strule."
Anon. Early 19th Century
Wednesday 19:
The community begins to bury its dead. The coverage by the locally-based media is sympathetic. Stories are related of the crass and callous
behaviour of journalists and cameramen from British and American newspapers and television stations. Some militant organisations hint at calling a ceasefire, others are more ambiguous. A wise Omagh man, my godfather, recalls a dictum of Daniel O'Connell that no cause in
Ireland is worth the shedding of a teaspoonful of blood. The political rhetoric of implacable dogmatists rings hollow in the light of the terrible suffering of Omagh.
"Ireland without her people is nothing to me, and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for 'Ireland' and yet can pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and suffering, the shame and degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland, aye wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a liar in his heart."
James Connolly
Thursday 20:
Three funerals virtually overlap in Church Street, Omagh, with a fourth at Drumragh. The fine weather has receded and in the ceaseless rain all nature seems to be in mourning, the churches never built to contain all of the mourners many of whom stand huddled under umbrella in town street and on country lanes.
"A glooming peace this morning with it brings:
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things:
Some shall be pardon'd and some punished."
William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. 1595
In the evening, on RTE, an Omagh man, whom I have always associated with the lighter side of local life, describes the trauma experienced by the local people. He makes the point that there are people walking about the town with diagnosable emotional disorders, and who are not aware of the fact. The passing of the days only makes the pain worse.
Friday 21:
The restoration of the human fabric will take a long time. At a more concrete level some consideration is already being given to the physical replacement of bricks and mortar. A local politician, himself bereaved, discourses on the radio as to how painful memories could be reduced in the reconstruction.
'They made a decree that lawyers never
Should think their records dated duly
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
'And so long after what happened here,
On the Twenty-second of July
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six,
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children's last retreat
They called it the Pied Piper's Street
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labour . . .
They wrote the story on a column
And on the great church window painted
The same to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away
And there it stands to this very day.
Robert Browning The Pied Piper of Hamelin. cl850
Saturday 22:
A vast concourse assembles in the centre of Omagh. Clergy speak with eloquence, dignity and restraint. Readings are given also in Irish, and in Spanish. The names of the dead are solemnly read out. The gathering, and the wider radio and television audience are given an opportunity to consider the manifold agencies which have been involved, and will continue to be involved, in helping the stricken, not least the tremendous work of the local council. The number present is, at the least estimate, twice the population of the town. A young girl sings:
"You can have my heart
If you don't mind broken things:
You can have my life.
If you don't mind these tears:
Well, I heard that you make old things new.
So I give all these pieces all to you
If you want it, you can have my heart."
Julie Miller
For the most of us a consolation, for the bereaved and injured a hymn of hope, and for the dead, a requiem.
By Raymond na Hatta
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/0260
Published Date: 27-Aug-98
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