THE IRISH EMIGRANT _______________________________________________________________________ Editor: Liam Ferrie August 17, 1998 Issue No.602 ======================================================================= +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Copyright 1998 The Irish Emigrant Ltd | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ Who would have thought five months ago, when the Good Friday Peace Agreement was being signed, that the North still had to go through even greater agony than it experienced at any time in the past 30 years. The Omagh bomb has claimed more lives than any other incident throughout the troubles. Since the first news of the blast came through, little else has been covered in news bulletins and it is obviously the first item of conversation whenever people get together. There seems no doubt that the bomb was the work of the "Real IRA" and many questions are being asked as to how they are to be dealt with. Even before Saturday's atrocity, death seemed to be the main theme of the week's news. Two young Irish men were killed in a construction site accident in Boston; at least five people drowned in four separate incidents; four people died in motorcycle accidents; a Donegal girl was killed when she was struck by a runaway truck wheel, while others died in road accidents, fires and falls and one person was murdered. CARNAGE IN OMAGH We thought we had seen it all but not in the darkest days of the Northern troubles did we witness an atrocity to match the bombing of Omagh on Saturday afternoon. The blast came at 3:10pm when the streets were crowded with shoppers enjoying one of the better days of the summer and just before a carnival was scheduled to pass along the street. News of the outrage will already have reached every corner of the world but I must still record the main details. The first indication that a tragedy had taken place came with messages flashing on television screens urging all available medical staff to report to the Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh. News bulletins confirmed that a car bomb had exploded in the town and many injuries were predicted. Within two hours we were told that at least 12 people had died and this number increased rapidly. By Sunday morning it was put at 28, with a total of 220 injured. The high death toll is attributed to the fact that the telephone warning to the RUC claimed that the bomb had been left outside the courthouse but it exploded 40 minutes later on Market Street, near the junction of Dublin Road, at a point where many of those moved by the RUC had congregated. Eyewitness provided harrowing accounts of those who were killed and injured. There were stories of a boy lying quietly with half his leg missing, of the 17-year-old pregnant girl who lost both legs, of the young woman in a wheel chair screaming for assistance, and of dead bodies and limbs scattered about the road. The local hospital could not treat all who arrived and after the injured were stabilised some were transferred, by both helicopter and ambulance, to hospitals in Derry, Enniskillen, Dungannon and Belfast. The distressing stories continued throughout Sunday. The more seriously injured were in Altagelvin in Derry and the Royal Victoria in Belfast where amputations and neurosurgery were carried out. The latest figures show that 104 people have been detained in hospital and 10 are in a critical condition. THE DEAD Of those who died six were men, 13 were women, four were boys and five were girls. The youngest victim, 18-month-old Maura Monaghan, died alongside her mother Avril Monaghan (30), who was heavily pregnant, and her grandmother Mary Grimes (65). They were from Augher. A group of Spanish students were caught up in the blast; a 12-year-old male student and a woman teacher, aged 24, died, and at least eleven others were injured. The dead also included three boys from Buncrana; Oran Doherty (8), Sean McLaughlin (12) and James Barker (12). They, and their friends, were the hosting the Spanish group who were in Co. Donegal on a language exchange visit. The entire party was on a day trip to the nearby Ulster-American Folk Park and decided to do some shopping on the way back. The Spanish Government is sending a plane to bring the party back to Madrid. Some other names those who died have emerged: Lorraine Wilson (15), Samantha McFarlane (17), Anne McConnell (48) and Adrian Gallagher (21), all from Omagh. An ambulance transferring the injured between hospitals collided with a car in Knock Road, Belfast, at around 9:30am on Sunday. The driver of the car died in the accident. THE REACTION The response from politicians and others was swift. It was condemned by all, although one or two tried to make political capital of the tragic events by insisting that the Good Friday Agreement had failed or that either Sinn Fein, the Irish Government or the British Government had to share the blame. John Hume described the perpetrators as "unadulterated fascists". Martin McGuinness was "appalled and disgusted" at "an indefensible action designed to wreck the (peace) process". Bertie Ahern said that his "heart goes out" to the victims and their families and promised to use all the necessary resources to "crush" those responsible. Most significantly Gerry Adams said, "I condemn it without any equivocation whatever". It was widely noted that this was the first time a leading Sinn Fein official had ever used the word "condemn" in relation to an attack by republican paramilitaries. The RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan is convinced that the warning phone call was deliberately misleading so as to cause as many casualties as possible. Many politicians cut short their holidays and among those who returned home were David Trimble from Germany, Tony Blair from the south of France, Dr Mo Mowlam from the Caribbean and John O'Donoghue from the Canary Islands. President McAleese visited the scene of the bombing as did the British deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Most news reports say that no one has claimed responsibility for the massacre although it was initially stated that the person who phoned the warning gave a code word linked to the "Real IRA". In any case there seems to be no doubt that this was the organisation which carried out this and other recent bomb attacks on provincial towns in the North. News organisations tell us that the group, which is linked with the 32-County Sovereignty Committee, is led by a former IRA quartermaster who lives in Dundalk. Sky News went further and said he was a Dundalk businessman who was separated from his wife and living with a member of a prominent Belfast Republican family. By Sunday night a meeting of the 32-County Sovereignty Committee was said to have taken place in Dundalk. A subsequent statement deplored the bombing and claimed that the organisation had nothing to do with it. It was also said that the Combined Loyalist Military Command, a body which was supposed to have disbanded, was meeting to discuss the response from the loyalist paramilitaries but nothing has emerged from that meeting. How to end this cycle of violence is the subject of great debate. Bertie Ahern called a Cabinet security committee meeting which agreed new powers for the gardai; these will be put to the full Cabinet in the coming week. Tony Blair met security chiefs in Belfast and later received the Taoiseach who travelled to Stormont for the meeting. The British Prime Minister also met leading politicians including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. A special RUC task force has been set up to find the culprits and pursue the "Real IRA". Later today Minister for Justice John O'Donoghue will meet Northern Secretary Dr Mo Mowlam and Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne will meet the RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan. DEATHS ON BOSTON BUILDING SITE As seems to happen every year, tragedy befalls one or more young Irish people working abroad for the summer. On Tuesday two young men died in an accident on a construction site in Quincy, Massachusetts, a few miles south of Boston. Shane McGettigan (21), of Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim, and Ronan Stewart (24), of Haggardstown, Co. Louth, were killed when scaffolding surrounding an apartment block collapsed and they fell 70 feet to the ground. The two, who did not know each other before meeting through work, had only arrived in the US a few weeks earlier. The tragedy probably received added publicity back here in Ireland as Shane McGettigan was the only son of singer/songwriter Charlie McGettigan who sang the winning song, "Rock'n'Roll Kids", in the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. Shane also played county football for the Leitrim senior team and it was only when his club side, Allen Gaels, were surprisingly beaten in the county championship last month that he decided to travel to the US. He was due to return to college at the end of the summer. Ronan Stewart was officially a member of the Defence Forces, having joined the Army in 1996, but had recently applied for an early discharge and was on leave when the accident occurred. His father, Michael, is vice-principal of O Fiaich College, a secondary school in Dundalk. His older sister Clodagh had travelled to Boston last weekend to visit him. Another sister, Niamh, was in London when the news came through and returned home immediately. IT IS SO COMPLICATED - BACK TO RESEARCH KIRWIN! Jana Black, Listowner, KIRWIN-L