On the Bloody Streets of Omagh

Seamus and Lorcán were both out of the hospital to watch the devastating aftermath – the funerals and the flowers and the grief of people who walked the streets near to where it happened, howling inconsolably. Seamus watched all of the funerals on television, going to what ones he could. Lorcán sat with him, his leg still bandaged and confined to a wheelchair, but he hoped that he would walk again, if he could get an artificial leg. He seemed to be taking it well, but Seamus heard his sobs at night, and he would go in and sit with him, comforting him without a word. The two brothers had seen horrors nobody should see that day, and they kept each other going through the tough times.

Seeing how many had died hurt. Seeing the ages of the people who had died hurt. Recognising their young and happy faces from the bloodied and still ones on the street hurt. Hearing that unborn twin girls had also been victims hurt. It all hurt. The heart had been ripped out of the town, and out of twenty-six families.

Twenty-six families torn apart, thirty children loosing their mothers, another family was soon going to be devastated when they lost a member who died in hospital in September. Seamus counted them all off in his head as he watched the latest funeral, the twenty-eighth one he had seen.

There had been little Breda Devine, who had been twenty months old. She had been the tiny baby Seamus had seen lying in the shop window, covered and alone. Everytime he saw a picture of her smiling, beautiful little face, he felt as though he was having his heart ripped out.

Then there was Fernando Blasco Baselga, who had been the little brother of Donna Marie. He had been twelve years old and had been on an exchange trip. He was one of several children not even from Northern Ireland who had waved goodbye to their parents and never returned home.

One of the Spanish teachers, Rocio Abad Ramos, who had been twenty-three, also died. She had loved Ireland and this had been her fifth time visiting. She died instantly, not living to see her sister's wedding.

Then there was little James Barker, who had been twelve. He had been from Buncrana in the Irish Republic, there on a day-trip. His parents had to drive to Omagh to identify his little body, and his mother had broken Seamus's heart when she had said that she had only noticed how beautifully green his eyes were when they had been looking out at him from his broken body. He had been the little boy that Seamus had seen, dead with his eyes open, before he had broken down completely.

Eight-year-old Oran Doherty, also from Buncrana, had been so excited to go to Omagh that he had been raving about it all week. He wasn't to know that he would never come home. He had been buried in his favourite Celtic shirt, with players and officials from the team attending his funeral to honour the memory of their young fan.

Sean McLaughlin, another twelve-year-old Buncrana boy, lived a few doors down from Oran. The family couldn't understand why their precious child had been taken so cruelly, when he had been nothing to do with the conflict. None of the victims had been. Mary McAleese was one of the mourners at his funeral – he had met her on a school trip before.

Sixty-year-old Frederick White, who had a wife and two children, had so many people turn up to pay their last respects that many people had to abandon their cars and walk to the funeral because of the heavy traffic.

Frederick's son, twenty-seven year old Bryan, died with his father, leaving his mother not only widowed but with only one child now. He had a great love of the outdoors, and Seamus hoped that wherever he had gone, he was where he felt happiest.

Esther Gibson was thirty-six and engaged. Her fiancé said that when she died, he had died with her. A picture had been placed on her coffin of her and her fiancé together, the photographer whispering gently, "You're together forever now".

Olive Hawkes, also sixty and married with two children, killed on the regular Saturday shopping trip that she enjoyed so much. She hadn't known that this would have been no ordinary Saturday and that she wouldn’t be returning.

Seventeen-year-old student Brenda Logue, who took the full force of the bomb when she looked to see why people were running and died instantly, her mother and grandmother escaping only with cuts and bruises, no doubt wondering why they had survived when they had been in the same place, and that Brenda had died in such a cruel way.

Gareth Conway, eighteen, also a student. His sister, who was a nurse, came to the scene of the bomb to help, only to find out that he was missing. At his funeral, the Auxiliary Bishop of Armagh said, "His future was stolen from him by men and women of violence who claim to plan a future for our country." Seamus wondered how killing your own could be planning a future for your country.

Talented and kind Jolene Marlow, who had been seventeen when she had been murdered, was buried on the day she would have received her A-Level results. Her sister had been injured so badly in the attack that she hadn’t been able to attend the funeral, instead having to watch it later, as it had been recorded for her.

Alan Radford was neither Protestant nor Catholic. He had been a sixteen-year-old Mormon boy who had gone in to help his mother with the weekly shopping. His fifteen-year-old sister accepted his GCSE certificate at the school's annual speech night the next year.

Fifty-seven-year-old mother-of-three Elizabeth "Libbi" Rush was killed as her popular shop and café had taken the full force of the blast. She had married her husband at eighteen and were going to celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary in 2000. Libbi wasn't to see it.

Philomena Skelton, forty-nine and a mother-of-four, only went into Omagh twice a year – Christmas and school uniform shopping. Seamus remembered seeing her in the shop when he saw her picture on the television. He had held the door open for her and she had thanked him and given him a dazzling smile. Minutes later she had been pulled, dead, from the rubble. Her three teenage daughters had been with her, and her husband next door in the other shop. He was still coming to terms with the fact that Mena, as he called her, had died and he had survived with barely a scratch, even though they had only been three feet apart.

Veda Short, a fifty-six-year-old mother-of-four, had held her newborn grandson, Lee, hours earlier on the day she was murdered. He had only been born that day, and Veda had met him before she went to work. She was killed while taking a break. The other employees had been able to get out through the back, but poor Veda had been taking her break in Market Street when the device had gone off.

Ann McCombe, a Protestant whose close friend had been a Catholic, had been forty-eight and a mother-of-two. Her husband said, "She was not just my wife, she was my best friend as well. She was such a loving, caring person. She had not a bad word to say about anybody." Yet, Seamus thought, some faceless cowards had decided to target her in a "war" that she was not involved in.

Geraldine Breslin, a forty-three year old with one child, and the close friend of Ann McCombe, took the full force of the explosion, leaving fifteen-year-old son motherless.

Aidan Gallagher had been twenty-one and the only son of the Breslin family. They didn't find out about his death until 3.30am the next morning. His uncle had already been murdered by the IRA years earlier.

Seventeen-year-old Samantha McFarland died with her best friend. She had been evacuated from the Oxfam shop where she had been volunteering and had ended up being directed closer to the bomb, due to the Real IRA not being clear in their phone call warnings.

Lorraine Wilson, her fifteen-year-old best friend, died with her. Her family only found out that she was dead 21 hours after the bomb exploded. She had just earned her first pay packet from her job at her sister's café, but never got the chance to spend it.

Julia Hughes had been twenty-one and at home from university, like Seamus. She was another tragedy due to the Real IRA's unclear warnings, and she had been one of many who, when evacuated, had instead run straight into the full force of the explosion.

Twenty-year-old Deborah Anne Cartwright's A-Level results, which confirmed her place at university, arrived on the day of her funeral.

Brian McCrory had been a fifty-four-year-old father of three, who had been buying paint to decorate his house with. His wife and daughter had clung to each other for support at his funeral as 300 people crammed into the church and 600 listened outside, standing in the drizzle. His wife said that she would be willing to carry the cross of her loss for the rest of her life if it meant that Brian's would be the last such one.

Sixty-six-year-old mother-of-twelve Mary Grimes died with her daughter, granddaughter and two unborn granddaughters on her birthday. Three generations of the family had been wiped out in that split second. Her family had been well known in the area, and she had originated from County Cork in the Irish Republic.

Avril Monaghan had been thirty years old, a mother-of-four, and eight months pregnant with twin girls. She died with her twins and her youngest daughter, Maura. Her coffin was carried by some of her ten brothers, while uncles from both sides carried Maura's tiny white coffin. The next time her husband should have been at the little church was to christen his baby twin daughters – instead, he found himself there to bury them, along with their big sister Maura and their mother.

Maura Monaghan was the youngest victim of the bombing, at eighteen months. She was buried with her mother and unborn twin sisters. Seamus knew that a quite from their funeral would always stay in his mind: "You could see for miles in most directions from that little graveyard: you could see trees and hedgerows, winding lanes and small woods. But no matter how hard you tried, you could not see why Avril and he three daughters should have died so horribly on the bloody streets of Omagh on a sunny Saturday afternoon.".

Seamus didn't know it then, but the death toll was to go up further when Sean McGrath, a sixty-one-year-old father-of-four, died in hospital on September 5th. Another tragedy in a long line. Another family ruined.

*

Seamus and Lorcán went to the memorial service, the first of many. Seamus was going to give a speech. He hadn’t written much of it. He was going to let it come from the heart. He had always been a good public speaker, and had been on the team at school. He was still well known for it.

It was because of this that he felt no nerves as he looked up to face everybody, still with the stitches over his head from where pieces of glass had sliced across his forehead. As he looked out across the sea of faces, he knew what he was going to say.

"Look at this," he said quietly, though there was no reason to speak any louder, as a hush had fallen. "Looking out at you all, I can see so many awful reminders of what has happened to our town. I can see the red eyes of parents who have lost children, widows and widowers, and the haunted eyes of people who have seen their friends and family blown to bits. I can see children without limbs who are going to be here in Omagh for perhaps sixty, seventy more years, a broken generation, and a reminder that this tragedy will never go away.

"We all want answers, don’t we? Why did it happen? Why were women, children, men, fathers and mothers, grandparents, Protestants and Catholics and even people who are not from Northern Ireland killed on these streets? I wish that I could have the answer, I truly do. I wish that I had something to tell you all, but I don't, and I never will. And I'm sorry for that, because I want answers, too.

"I want to know why my little brother's leg was blown off. I want to know why, as I staggered down the street on that awful day, I saw a dead baby lying in a shop window. I want to know why I saw a little boy, dead with his eyes still open, lying in six inches of water. I want to know why so many were killed in what was probably the worst and the most disgusting act of cowardice that this country had ever seen.

"The Real IRA, they have the cheek to hide behind religion, but they killed Catholics. They have the cheek to claim that they were fighting for Ireland, yet they killed Ireland's children, and Northern Ireland's children, too. We may have been divided by years of conflict, but today, we stand together. We stand together because grief affects everyone. The tears that roll down our cheeks are the same, and we all cry in the same language. We're not different. We're more united now than we'll ever be, and it's such a shame that it took something like this to bring us this close.

"The Real IRA call themselves patriots, but I'll say this and I don't care who hears me: they are cowards, they are scumbags, and wherever the bombers are now, I hope that the guilt eats them up inside. I hope that they turn themselves in. I hope that the pictures of baby Breda and baby Maura and the thought of Avril Monaghan's unborn twin girls makes them realise exactly what they have done.

"I saw horrible things that day, we all did. I know that I will never forget them for as long as I live. They tore the heart out of Omagh that day, they ripped it to pieces and they murdered children and adults alike. Have they ever heard the screams of a mother who is cradling her dead child's body? Have they ever heard the shrieks of an injured child, as he or she searches frantically for their parents? Have they ever seen the haunting look in a child's eyes as he or she looks at a fragment of human that used to be their parents? No. They haven’t, and as I'm a decent human being, I would never wish than upon anyone. I just hope that they have the decency to call it off. They are themselves alone, as I know that we do not want any part of this. It is not our place to punish. God knows who they are. They can run, but they cannot hide, and if they do not get justice in this lifetime, they certainly will when Judgement Day comes. That, we have to remember.

"But for now, we need to stand together as a community. Remember the ones who have died for all the joy that they brought us, and for their sweet and good lives, and stand together for their memory. We will not let this beat us. It is indeed a long road, but we are among friends here."

Some people were crying, others were staring sadly ahead, but all clapped as Seamus stepped down, and gradually everybody realised that his words were true, and that they were a community united now, Catholic, Protestant, Mormon … whoever they were, they had friends here now, and they would rise from the ashes and rebuilt, forever with the memories of their loved ones to spur them on.

*

Seamus Donovan thought of all of those little moments frequently now. He used to deny that they happened, before he allowed them into the front of his mind.

Now, ten years on, he was shopping on the same street with his own wife, and their four young children. Aislinn, his wife, was pregnant with their fifth child, and everywhere Seamus looked he saw people that he recognised.

There was his brother Lorcán, now twenty and following his dream of being a doctor at university. He had an artificial leg now, but he didn’t let it hold him back in any way. He had earned outstanding grades at both GCSE and A-Level, and Seamus knew that it would only be a matter of time before there was a Dr. Donovan in the family.

Seamus was a history teacher at a local school and he loved it: he had always been fascinated with history and although he had a mad class, he was fond of them all. All of his GCSE groups were passing their History GCSE with outstanding marks. Seamus also taught Irish, Spanish and French in evening classes, realising well the importance of being bilingual, multi-lingual if you could. He had already known Irish, but had retaken Spanish and French and was now near enough fluent in both languages. He hoped that he would never have to use them in such a situation ever again, but it paid to know.

The street had been rebuilt, and Seamus no longer focused on the memories of himself running down the street ten years earlier, covered in blood and surrounded by the dead. Instead, he focused on the living.

It was a Saturday in August, ten years to the month. The street was alive once more. Children playing, mothers shopping and fathers gossiping. No car stopped with its deadly cargo, as the country was in a state of blissful peace at the present moment. Neighbours and friend of both Catholic and Protestant backgrounds greeted Seamus and Aislinn and their children, many the parents of Seamus's students.

Aislinn and Seamus made their way to the end of Market Street, Aislinn pushing the pram of their youngest, Seamus holding their second youngest, and the two eldest running ahead to play near one of their favourite spots.

It stood before them as Aislinn and Seamus both looked up at it. A beautiful structure of glass with the three dimensional heart in the middle of it. The sun was in the right place today. The sculpture was nearly always in the shade, and even though it was in the shade now, the sun was in the right place for something else. Around the corner, unseen from where they were, a group of mirrors positioned facing the sky caught the rays, one for every victim. The light bounced around the corner by reflecting off several other strategically placed mirrors, and finally came to a stop reflecting directly on the heart on the sculpture. Therefore, despite the shade, the heart glowed a bright a pure colour, reflecting dancing lights on the floor around their feet.

Aislinn leaned against Seamus and they both smiled as they watched their two eldest play around the sculpture, the next generation who were growing up in a much better society. Their new baby, who was due in a month and half, could expect the same, and Seamus thanked God for this every day.

Of course, there were still the underlying wounds. Every so often a person of Seamus's generation would come around the corner with an arm or a leg missing, but they had a smile on their face. The dead were remembered how they were in life now, and life was going on in the town of Omagh.

Eventually, Seamus and Aislinn called six-year-old Gráinne, their eldest daughter, five-year-old Tierney, their eldest son, over to them, and he and Aislinn headed back down the street with two-year-old Eimear and one-year-old Darragh. They took a slow dander up the street, greeting those they knew and smiling at those they didn't, and began on the walk back home.

Behind them, the beam of light shifted with the sun and threw a dazzling light up the busy street, over playing and laughing children and reminding everyone that there was always light in the darkness.