RECORDING THE HEARTBEAT OF OUR COMMUNITY'S GRIEF
Recording the 'heartbeat' of our community's grief
It was to be the day of David Beckham's renaissance. The Golden Boy of English soccer had been demonised through the whole of the summer after being sent off in the summer World Cup in France.
He scored a trademark free-kick six minutes into stoppage time in the opening Premiership game of the season to secure Manchester United a 2-2 draw against Leicester. The 56,000 supporters at Old Trafford, including the 60-odd members of the Omagh Branch of the United Supporters Club went into ecstasy. It was just after 5pm as we made our way cheerfully out of the Theatre of Dreams making our plans for the night ahead - and then the rumours started reaching us.
With the mobile phone fixation then in its infancy, news was slow filtering through. A frantic telephone call home once we had returned to our hotel in Altrincham confirmed the worst, though the sense of shock and disbelief at the magnitude of the atrocity was fused with relief that none of our immediate family had been caught up in the bomb blast.
The coach and boat trip home via Dun Laoghaire the next day seemed an interminable one. By now the scale of the tragedy was clear. Sunday papers displayed the mangled wreckage and rumble of familiar buildings and shop facades which we passed every day of our lives. The names of the deceased were now confirmed - many familiar, others not so.
As the coach drew into Omagh on Sunday evening and we disembarked at the bus station, I was struck by the eerie silence engulfing the town. Knots of people were cluttered together in groups of two or three talking in hushed tones, the bomb site cordoned off by the police.
Many times we had heard hackneyed sporting cliches about counties or towns being cast into mourning by the outcome of a GAA or soccer match. On this evening after the barbarity and heroism exhibited at Market Street just over 24 hours previously, these expressions were thrown into stark perspective.
The Herald office was already a hive of activity when I arrived in just before 9am the following day. The previous week's front page lead story was about a crisis in the 'Pig Industry' in Tyrone. We had joked on the Thursday about the difficulty of garnering headline-grabbing news items during what the industry refers to as the 'silly season'. Laughter was in short supply in the John Street office on this Monday morning. A quick-fire editorial conference sought to establish a coherent and ordered approach to the week ahead. In such a maelstrom of emotion and despair, it was difficult to maintain any sense of normality.
The international media had descended on the town arid the atrocity was receiving wall-to-wall coverage, be it in newsprint, on the airwaves or on the television screen. However the Herald represented the 'heartbeat' of this shattered community and, as such, was tasked with communicating the angst and pain of its people.
Weekly tasks (such as 'sub-editing' village/GAA notes) seemed inconsequential in the light of an event of such a magnitude but the sombre tone of each small note of condolence highlighted the impact of the bombing in every niche of the county and far beyond.
Slowly the week's paper took shape. Graphic recollections of the incident, background information on the deceased, reactions from public figures, the police hunt for the perpetrators.
Eventually Thursday came around and the Herald hit the streets. The general reaction was one of satisfaction and credit that we had poignantly chronicled the events of the last five days.
Yet the first of the funerals had taken place the previous day, with four more scheduled for today. Plaudits, however genuine, were an irrelevance.
b.odonnell@ulsterherald.com
It was to be the day of David Beckham's renaissance. The Golden Boy of English soccer had been demonised through the whole of the summer after being sent off in the summer World Cup in France.
He scored a trademark free-kick six minutes into stoppage time in the opening Premiership game of the season to secure Manchester United a 2-2 draw against Leicester. The 56,000 supporters at Old Trafford, including the 60-odd members of the Omagh Branch of the United Supporters Club went into ecstasy. It was just after 5pm as we made our way cheerfully out of the Theatre of Dreams making our plans for the night ahead - and then the rumours started reaching us.
With the mobile phone fixation then in its infancy, news was slow filtering through. A frantic telephone call home once we had returned to our hotel in Altrincham confirmed the worst, though the sense of shock and disbelief at the magnitude of the atrocity was fused with relief that none of our immediate family had been caught up in the bomb blast.
The coach and boat trip home via Dun Laoghaire the next day seemed an interminable one. By now the scale of the tragedy was clear. Sunday papers displayed the mangled wreckage and rumble of familiar buildings and shop facades which we passed every day of our lives. The names of the deceased were now confirmed - many familiar, others not so.
As the coach drew into Omagh on Sunday evening and we disembarked at the bus station, I was struck by the eerie silence engulfing the town. Knots of people were cluttered together in groups of two or three talking in hushed tones, the bomb site cordoned off by the police.
Many times we had heard hackneyed sporting cliches about counties or towns being cast into mourning by the outcome of a GAA or soccer match. On this evening after the barbarity and heroism exhibited at Market Street just over 24 hours previously, these expressions were thrown into stark perspective.
The Herald office was already a hive of activity when I arrived in just before 9am the following day. The previous week's front page lead story was about a crisis in the 'Pig Industry' in Tyrone. We had joked on the Thursday about the difficulty of garnering headline-grabbing news items during what the industry refers to as the 'silly season'. Laughter was in short supply in the John Street office on this Monday morning. A quick-fire editorial conference sought to establish a coherent and ordered approach to the week ahead. In such a maelstrom of emotion and despair, it was difficult to maintain any sense of normality.
The international media had descended on the town arid the atrocity was receiving wall-to-wall coverage, be it in newsprint, on the airwaves or on the television screen. However the Herald represented the 'heartbeat' of this shattered community and, as such, was tasked with communicating the angst and pain of its people.
Weekly tasks (such as 'sub-editing' village/GAA notes) seemed inconsequential in the light of an event of such a magnitude but the sombre tone of each small note of condolence highlighted the impact of the bombing in every niche of the county and far beyond.
Slowly the week's paper took shape. Graphic recollections of the incident, background information on the deceased, reactions from public figures, the police hunt for the perpetrators.
Eventually Thursday came around and the Herald hit the streets. The general reaction was one of satisfaction and credit that we had poignantly chronicled the events of the last five days.
Yet the first of the funerals had taken place the previous day, with four more scheduled for today. Plaudits, however genuine, were an irrelevance.
b.odonnell@ulsterherald.com
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH10An/40
Published Date: 14-Aug-08
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