HEARING THE SILENCE OF A TOWN TORN APART
Hearing the silence of a town torn apart
The Omagh Bomb Story
By Darach MacDonald
What I remember is the silence of a town, a silence broken only by whispered exchanges between friends and neighbours relating fragmentary details of who had died, who was injured, where they had been themselves.
It was an unnatural silence that pervaded a normally busy town centre where police tape, haphazardly tied, delineated the forensic zone and provided a focus for floral tributes. It was the respectful silence of the Leisure Centre where family and friends waited for news of loved ones. It was the forced silence of visiting dignitaries stunned by the sheer scale of the atrocity. It was the patient silence of the media which realised this story needed no embellishment. It was the stunned silence of local people caught in the lethargy of shock and trauma, people who could not yet muster the energy to be hurt.
At the actual time of the bomb, I was walking on Sliabh Beagh above the Clogher Valley. To this day, I have a hazy memory of a thud in the distance. When we came down from the hills, we heard the news and the speculation that the death toll would be high. Later I was contacted by a friend from the Washington Times newspaper - a photographer I had worked with in Canada. She asked me to pick her up in Belfast and help her to cover the story for her American newspaper. We went to Omagh, filed our stories and pictures and I stayed on to work for the Ireland on Sunday newspaper in Dublin.
For days, I lived with the silence of the town that would later become my home and I witnessed the pain and dignity of a community visited by terror beyond endurance.
Just beyond the Market Street bridge in Campsie, TV cameras were hoisted on hired cranes brought in from Monaghan. They were trained on the site of the bomb, silent video-cam witnesses to the aftermath of horror. A techno-village of TV vans had taken over a huge part of the car-park across the footbridge at Dunnes Stores. Over the days that followed, eerie TV images were relayed around the world, including into homes in Omagh just metres from the actual scene but an entire world removed from it.
As is normally the case in Ireland, I knew people from Omagh, friends from previous times, acquaintances to renew in the aftermath of tragedy. They provided insight and caution.
I also knew visiting journalists from Dublin, Belfast and from North America, observers with less community contact than I had. Over endless cups of coffee between interviews and press conferences, we talked of what had happened and shared our anger and outrage at some of the less savoury antics of reporters who, as the days went by, grew restless for a fresh angle.
I attended the funeral of Avril and Maura Monaghan in the picturesque Forth Chapel down in the Clogher Valley, arriving at the same time as Rory O'Hanlon, the senior minister representing the Irish government. He knew me and shepherded me inside to sit alongside him while the press contingent was confined to a field on the hill opposite the chapel. Through an uplifting funeral service, we dwelt on the slaughter of innocents - including Avril's unborn twins - and the resilience of family and community in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
Over the days, the story moved falteringly. There were tales of horror and heroism, of emergency services and a hospital that went far beyond the call of duty.
There were sketchy details of the bombers, too, of twisted ideology and misplaced ardour.
Then on the Wednesday, there was the first of the community services. Silence still reigned at the bus depot as the crowds broke up and moved off along routes that were opening up again. A press photographer climbed into the window of a wrecked business premises on the corner of Drumragh Avenue and began taking pictures of people through the shards of shattered window-glass. A young woman noticed this and, in an instant, she rounded on the photographer, asking angrily why he was treating people as mere objects.
Her angry denunciation broke the silence. After days of holdings its breath, Omagh sighed deeply and lived again.
The Omagh Bomb Story
By Darach MacDonald
What I remember is the silence of a town, a silence broken only by whispered exchanges between friends and neighbours relating fragmentary details of who had died, who was injured, where they had been themselves.
It was an unnatural silence that pervaded a normally busy town centre where police tape, haphazardly tied, delineated the forensic zone and provided a focus for floral tributes. It was the respectful silence of the Leisure Centre where family and friends waited for news of loved ones. It was the forced silence of visiting dignitaries stunned by the sheer scale of the atrocity. It was the patient silence of the media which realised this story needed no embellishment. It was the stunned silence of local people caught in the lethargy of shock and trauma, people who could not yet muster the energy to be hurt.
At the actual time of the bomb, I was walking on Sliabh Beagh above the Clogher Valley. To this day, I have a hazy memory of a thud in the distance. When we came down from the hills, we heard the news and the speculation that the death toll would be high. Later I was contacted by a friend from the Washington Times newspaper - a photographer I had worked with in Canada. She asked me to pick her up in Belfast and help her to cover the story for her American newspaper. We went to Omagh, filed our stories and pictures and I stayed on to work for the Ireland on Sunday newspaper in Dublin.
For days, I lived with the silence of the town that would later become my home and I witnessed the pain and dignity of a community visited by terror beyond endurance.
Just beyond the Market Street bridge in Campsie, TV cameras were hoisted on hired cranes brought in from Monaghan. They were trained on the site of the bomb, silent video-cam witnesses to the aftermath of horror. A techno-village of TV vans had taken over a huge part of the car-park across the footbridge at Dunnes Stores. Over the days that followed, eerie TV images were relayed around the world, including into homes in Omagh just metres from the actual scene but an entire world removed from it.
As is normally the case in Ireland, I knew people from Omagh, friends from previous times, acquaintances to renew in the aftermath of tragedy. They provided insight and caution.
I also knew visiting journalists from Dublin, Belfast and from North America, observers with less community contact than I had. Over endless cups of coffee between interviews and press conferences, we talked of what had happened and shared our anger and outrage at some of the less savoury antics of reporters who, as the days went by, grew restless for a fresh angle.
I attended the funeral of Avril and Maura Monaghan in the picturesque Forth Chapel down in the Clogher Valley, arriving at the same time as Rory O'Hanlon, the senior minister representing the Irish government. He knew me and shepherded me inside to sit alongside him while the press contingent was confined to a field on the hill opposite the chapel. Through an uplifting funeral service, we dwelt on the slaughter of innocents - including Avril's unborn twins - and the resilience of family and community in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
Over the days, the story moved falteringly. There were tales of horror and heroism, of emergency services and a hospital that went far beyond the call of duty.
There were sketchy details of the bombers, too, of twisted ideology and misplaced ardour.
Then on the Wednesday, there was the first of the community services. Silence still reigned at the bus depot as the crowds broke up and moved off along routes that were opening up again. A press photographer climbed into the window of a wrecked business premises on the corner of Drumragh Avenue and began taking pictures of people through the shards of shattered window-glass. A young woman noticed this and, in an instant, she rounded on the photographer, asking angrily why he was treating people as mere objects.
Her angry denunciation broke the silence. After days of holdings its breath, Omagh sighed deeply and lived again.
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH10An/43
Published Date: 14-Aug-08
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