Suspicious parked car
Fingers pointing
Children screaming
Mothers Rushing
A loud explosion
Glass flying everywhere
Buildings Collapsing
Screams of pain Fill the air
Sirens sounding
Alarms going wild
Innocent people dying
I wrote this one whilst watching the news break on TV. Having served 18 months there during the 70's, I managed to make a lot of good friends, some of who im still in contact to this day. My first reaction to this was shock and horror, then as it sunk in slowly urgent phone calls to friends to see if they were ok. Here is an extract from what was wrote after the horrific day
The bomb in Omagh on Saturday 15 August 1998 resulted in 29 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
Ironically, the worst single atrocity of thirty years of conflict in Ireland occurred at the point of highest hope during those years. The Good Friday Agreement had been signed just 13 weeks before. The massacre, caused by a 'Real' IRA car bomb, claimed the lives of 29 innocent civilians. Although the effects of the bomb on the victims and their families were catastrophic, the atrocity made politicans more determined than ever to make the process work: the opposite from what was intended by the murderers.
It is worth quoting a report from the time of the bomb: "The Omagh fatality list reads like a microcosm of troubles deaths, and left no section of Irish life untouched. The town they attacked is roughly 60-40 Catholic-Protestant, and the dead consisted of Protestants, Catholics, a Mormon and two Spanish visitors. They killed young, old and middle-aged, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and grannies. They killed republicans and unionists, including a prominent local member of the Ulster Unionist Party. They killed people from the backbone of the Gaelic Athletic Association. They killed unborn twins, bright students, cheery shop assistants and many young people. They killed three children from the Irish Republic who were up north on a day trip. Everyone they killed was a civilian. The toll of death was thus both extraordinarily high and extraordinarily comprehensive."
