DISPUTE OVER NEW OMAGH BOMB MEMORIAL WIDENS
Dispute over new Omagh bomb memorial widens
BY ADRIAN MULLAN
A COLLISION looks increasingly likely between the Omagh Bomb Memorial Working Group, chaired by Omagh District Council chief executive, Danny McSorley, and the Omagh Support and Self Help Group led by Michael Gallagher.
The Memorial Working Group, set up by the district council, rejected the suggested wording for a memorial stone put forward by the support group. The two sides parted company last year.
Now, as the ninth anniversary of the Omagh bombing atrocity nears, the victims group says it may erect its own memorial at the scene of the massacre in defiance of both the council and the Memorial Working Group.
The victims group proposed that the message on the memorial stone should read, "Shattered lives, 15 August 1998, Omagh bomb. To honour and remember 31 people murdered and hundreds injured from three nations on this site by a dissident republican terrorist car bomb on this spot."
The working group, for its part, held a competition to design an appropriate memorial. Stage one of that competition has concluded and an assessment panel met on Wednesday past, (May 30), to view submissions and to short-list the entries to those which are to proceed to stage two. At the end of July, the assessment panel will again meet to select the winning design.
However, the Omagh Support and Self Help Group will not give its support to the Memorial Working Group while Mr McSorley remains at its helm.
Michael Gallagher said that he was willing to step back if Mr McSorley would do likewise, but no such indication has been received. Moreover, Mr Gallagher claims that his suggestion that the matter should go to mediation has been thrown back in his face.
An impasse has thus developed and the victims support group has said it will place its own memorial or memorials at the site of the bomb and woe betide the council if it orders it removed.
Mr Gallagher said, "If they take the view that they are going to remove it, what are they going to do about the memorials (to the H-Block hunger strikers) at Strathroy, or the site at Dromore, or on the Carrickmore Road? In December last year, I travelled from Omagh to Tipperary and on the road along the way there was a large number of markers on the side of the road for people who had died in road accidents, and their families had marked the spot. Have we not the right to mark the spot where our families died? We could turn the bottom of Market Street into a grave yard if every family decided that they wanted their marker up."
Mr Gallagher added that the Memorial Working Group had been steered in such a way a so that no one actually objected to their proposed wording; rather, the goal posts were moved and the decision as to the wording taken away from the families.
A council spokesperson, said, "Representatives of Omagh Support and Self Help Group met with some members of the Omagh Memorial Working Group last week.
"A number of issues were raised and questions put to the Omagh Memorial Working Group by the Omagh Support and Self Help Group. No comment can be made on the meeting, or the issues raised, until they have been discussed by the Omagh Memorial Working Group at its next meeting which will take place on June 13."
BY ADRIAN MULLAN
A COLLISION looks increasingly likely between the Omagh Bomb Memorial Working Group, chaired by Omagh District Council chief executive, Danny McSorley, and the Omagh Support and Self Help Group led by Michael Gallagher.
The Memorial Working Group, set up by the district council, rejected the suggested wording for a memorial stone put forward by the support group. The two sides parted company last year.
Now, as the ninth anniversary of the Omagh bombing atrocity nears, the victims group says it may erect its own memorial at the scene of the massacre in defiance of both the council and the Memorial Working Group.
The victims group proposed that the message on the memorial stone should read, "Shattered lives, 15 August 1998, Omagh bomb. To honour and remember 31 people murdered and hundreds injured from three nations on this site by a dissident republican terrorist car bomb on this spot."
The working group, for its part, held a competition to design an appropriate memorial. Stage one of that competition has concluded and an assessment panel met on Wednesday past, (May 30), to view submissions and to short-list the entries to those which are to proceed to stage two. At the end of July, the assessment panel will again meet to select the winning design.
However, the Omagh Support and Self Help Group will not give its support to the Memorial Working Group while Mr McSorley remains at its helm.
Michael Gallagher said that he was willing to step back if Mr McSorley would do likewise, but no such indication has been received. Moreover, Mr Gallagher claims that his suggestion that the matter should go to mediation has been thrown back in his face.
An impasse has thus developed and the victims support group has said it will place its own memorial or memorials at the site of the bomb and woe betide the council if it orders it removed.
Mr Gallagher said, "If they take the view that they are going to remove it, what are they going to do about the memorials (to the H-Block hunger strikers) at Strathroy, or the site at Dromore, or on the Carrickmore Road? In December last year, I travelled from Omagh to Tipperary and on the road along the way there was a large number of markers on the side of the road for people who had died in road accidents, and their families had marked the spot. Have we not the right to mark the spot where our families died? We could turn the bottom of Market Street into a grave yard if every family decided that they wanted their marker up."
Mr Gallagher added that the Memorial Working Group had been steered in such a way a so that no one actually objected to their proposed wording; rather, the goal posts were moved and the decision as to the wording taken away from the families.
A council spokesperson, said, "Representatives of Omagh Support and Self Help Group met with some members of the Omagh Memorial Working Group last week.
"A number of issues were raised and questions put to the Omagh Memorial Working Group by the Omagh Support and Self Help Group. No comment can be made on the meeting, or the issues raised, until they have been discussed by the Omagh Memorial Working Group at its next meeting which will take place on June 13."
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/1903
Published Date: 04-Jun-07
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