Denis: The bombers will never win

Feb 26 2010 By Denis Kilcommons

We walked down into the town, which was as bustling as it had been on that fateful day, and I felt safe because of the history. No one would be explode another device. Would they?

The toy shop was as Ronan had described, an old fashioned Aladdin’s Cave that delighted Lorcan (four) and Ruairi (two). When we left, the crowds on the street were as normal as anywhere in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

Young girls jostling and giggling, youths in football shirts, families pushing prams, ladies freshly coiffured leaving hairdressers, blokes smoking cigarettes outside bars or nipping to the betting shop next door.

It was about 3.10pm, the time the bomb had gone off, as we walked back up the hill towards the courthouse. If this had been then, we would have been caught in the blast.

But it could never happen again.

Two days later, dissident republicans detonated a car bomb outside the courthouse in Newry. It went off only 17 minutes after a warning was received. A coach carrying a church badminton club narrowly missed the blast.

This mindless violence begs the question of why they do it? The IRA and Sinn Fein have acknowledged the union of Ireland will never be achieved by bombs and bullets. This is why we have a peace process and political goals.

The dissidents no longer have a cause. Their only aim is to disrupt peace. They are led by a few hard-liners who refuse to face reality and, instead of the committed IRA battalions and active service units of the past, are said to rely on misfits and petty crooks.

Sinn Fein’s John O’Dowd said, "They’re interlinking with criminal and anti-social elements. Their support base appears to be people who are disaffected."

Thank God, it’s a small support base. There remain strong republican sympathies all across Northern Ireland. There remain divisions in communities. But the overwhelming majority want peace to work.

Let’s hope there is never ever another Omagh.