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OMAGH |
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On the afternoon of Saturday August 15, 1998, a 500-pound car bomb ,
planted by a dissident Republican group calling itself the Real IRA,
exploded on Market Street in the centre of Tyrone's largest town, OMAGH
. Twenty-six people were killed outright (a further three died later)
and more than two hundred were injured. It was the worst single atrocity
in the history of the Troubles and drew outrage and condemnation from
every quarter. Indeed Sinn Féin's president, Gerry Adams,
unprecedentedly denounced the bombing "without any equivocation
whatsoever". Politicians moved frantically to save the peace process and
prevent any Loyalist reprisals while the Irish and British governments
announced their intentions to reinforce anti-terrorist legislation. Such
efforts, however, offered scant consolation to the people of Omagh, a
town more integrated and harmonious than most in Northern Ireland, and
by then unified in its grief.
Much of the eastern part of Omagh's main street was devastated by the
bombing and has since undergone major reconstruction. The area uphill to
the west, originally thought to be the bombers' target on the basis of
their misleading warning, remained unscathed and contains two adjacent
buildings which would grace any town - the fine classical courthouse and
the irregular twin spires of the Catholic Sacred Heart Church .
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