WHEN EVEN THE GRIEF OF BURYING MY MOTHER WAS BLASTED AWAY BY HORROR
When even the grief of burying my mother was blasted away by horror
We had just buried my mother a few hours earlier and were back at the family home in Cannondale when the Omagh bomb went off. I was in the upstairs bedroom talking to my father (now deceased) about what had happened our family, for me, the loss of my mother, friend, confidante and teacher.
There was a sound in the distance which to me wasn't much more than a car door slamming heavily. My father knew it was a bomb in the town. We went downstairs to check if everyone was accounted for - but the grandchildren weren't; they had gone into town. My sister had set off on foot to look for them, but they had arrived home while she was still out.
My father and I set off looking for her and when we came to the Johnston Car Park we met her coming up the street. She had stumbled upon the scene and was visibly shocked.
As we bundled her into the car, a huge wave of people surged out of the town centre down Scarffe's Entry when the rumour spread that there was a second bomb.
Throughout the day we heard the news of the casualties coming in. As I walked the few hundred yards from my father's house to my own home, I got some sense of the fact that a massacre had occurred.
A car stopped beside me and a woman I knew said, "There are dead bodies everywhere."
I walked home stunned and, throughout the day, though the phones were down for a time, I received calls from friends and family telling me the death toll and identifying some of those killed, sometimes wrongly. The effect was devastating and with every call, my spirits sank lower. The BBC called and asked if I would cover the story for them. I declined.
I remained off work for one week and therefore wasn't involved in the gruesome first days of reporting which my colleagues had to deal with. The scale of it seemed to have blasted away my own grief and when, a week or so after the tragedy, I was meeting the stunned and confused families of the victims.
For weeks after the bomb, it was apparent that the families of the deceased and injured, and the witnesses, the helpers, the police, the ambulance staff, nurses and doctors and those individuals who had selfless rush to help, were all in shock. Some of the bereaved seemed resigned almost philosophical, but days and weeks later, when the true horror set in they were again inconsolable as if the tragedy had happened afresh.
As a journalist, it was a turning point. I began to feel that whereas doctors, nurses, police, soldiers, counsellors and others had done something to help, all we as journalists could do was write about it.
It took a long time for me to realise that the pen and the computer had their roles to play also.
a.mullan@ulsterherald.com
We had just buried my mother a few hours earlier and were back at the family home in Cannondale when the Omagh bomb went off. I was in the upstairs bedroom talking to my father (now deceased) about what had happened our family, for me, the loss of my mother, friend, confidante and teacher.
There was a sound in the distance which to me wasn't much more than a car door slamming heavily. My father knew it was a bomb in the town. We went downstairs to check if everyone was accounted for - but the grandchildren weren't; they had gone into town. My sister had set off on foot to look for them, but they had arrived home while she was still out.
My father and I set off looking for her and when we came to the Johnston Car Park we met her coming up the street. She had stumbled upon the scene and was visibly shocked.
As we bundled her into the car, a huge wave of people surged out of the town centre down Scarffe's Entry when the rumour spread that there was a second bomb.
Throughout the day we heard the news of the casualties coming in. As I walked the few hundred yards from my father's house to my own home, I got some sense of the fact that a massacre had occurred.
A car stopped beside me and a woman I knew said, "There are dead bodies everywhere."
I walked home stunned and, throughout the day, though the phones were down for a time, I received calls from friends and family telling me the death toll and identifying some of those killed, sometimes wrongly. The effect was devastating and with every call, my spirits sank lower. The BBC called and asked if I would cover the story for them. I declined.
I remained off work for one week and therefore wasn't involved in the gruesome first days of reporting which my colleagues had to deal with. The scale of it seemed to have blasted away my own grief and when, a week or so after the tragedy, I was meeting the stunned and confused families of the victims.
For weeks after the bomb, it was apparent that the families of the deceased and injured, and the witnesses, the helpers, the police, the ambulance staff, nurses and doctors and those individuals who had selfless rush to help, were all in shock. Some of the bereaved seemed resigned almost philosophical, but days and weeks later, when the true horror set in they were again inconsolable as if the tragedy had happened afresh.
As a journalist, it was a turning point. I began to feel that whereas doctors, nurses, police, soldiers, counsellors and others had done something to help, all we as journalists could do was write about it.
It took a long time for me to realise that the pen and the computer had their roles to play also.
a.mullan@ulsterherald.com
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH10An/38
Published Date: 14-Aug-08
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