Denis: The bombers will never win

Feb 26 2010 By Denis Kilcommons

OVER in Donegal, we had a weekend with our grandsons and wanted to give them a treat.

There’s a grand toy shop in Omagh," said Ronan, my son-in-law, so we drove over the border into Northern Ireland.

We crossed the River Strule and turned into the main street of this attractive market town of 22,000. And I was shocked by a view that has been burned into the memories of many people.

This was the town where, 12 years ago, the Real IRA, detonated a 500lb car bomb and killed 29 innocent men, women and children.

That had been a Saturday afternoon in August and the streets had been busy with shoppers. They were busy now, as we drove up Market Street.

The view up the hill to the courthouse was the one that millions worldwide had seen – a devastated shopping street with the imposing Victorian building at the top.

I had never been to Omagh before and the view hit me with a heavyweight thump and brought back all those memories of distress and anger that anyone could be so callous, no matter what the cause. It made it all once more immediate.

Our daughter Siobhan had been staying 20 miles away in Strabane that weekend and there had been an awful uncertainty until we heard from her.

Farcically, the bombers had failed to take into account how busy the town would be on a Saturday and couldn’t get a parking spot anywhere near the courthouse, which had been their target. Instead, they left the car down in Market Street near the Dublin Road.

Then came the wrong warning: "There’s a bomb, courthouse, Omagh, main street, 500lb, explosion 30 minutes."

Accordingly, police moved people down the street – directly into the blast as the car detonated at 3.10pm. The scenes that resulted were described as "utter carnage". As well as the dead, 220 were injured.