Writing by Yvonne Watterson

~ considering the lilies & lessons from the field ©

Writing by Yvonne Watterson

Category Archives: Sectarianism

has anybody seen my old friend, America?

05 Thursday Sep 2024

Posted by Editor in Guns, Police shootings, Racism, Sectarianism, The Cure at Troy, The Troubles

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alton-sterling-, dallas, Dallas shooting, philando-castile, Seamus Heaney

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I often feel guilty for having left my Northern Ireland. I wonder if perhaps the better thing or the best thing would have been to stay, to strive to see beyond the images that flickered on our television screen at six o’clock every night. But I didn’t stay. I fled. I turned my back on the vulnerable, tiny country that shaped and scared me – my lovely tragic Northern Ireland —and I became an immigrant in an America I wouldn’t recognize after three decades.

And then, I turned my back on the United States of America.

In retrospect, I spent much of the 1980s planning my escape from Northern Ireland.  It was a turbulent and traumatic time for my family, my friends, and for me. We lived and worked and played and prayed within a national crucible of doubt and suspicion;  in a half-empty glass, we were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In such a small country, it makes sense that so many of us would know somebody directly affected by The Troubles. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) from 1969 – 1999, “3,568 people died. There were over 35,000 shootings, 150,000 bombings, over 40,000 people wounded.” Countless others were traumatized to varying degrees. Surveys say half of the population knows somebody killed or injured.

What did I do about it? Nothing. I left. I packed up my trauma and brought it along with me.

Weary of the bombings and killings; weary of the hatred and the sense of hopelessness that seeped into our ordinary lives, I came to America. Ardent and young, I believed Tom Wolfe’s assertion:

America is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.

But those miracles were overshadowed by the realties of life in a place where gun violence is part and parcel of American life.

From the living room of my home in Mexico, I’m absorbing the news of yet another shooting in the United States. There have been 385 mass shootings so far this year, according to Gun Violence Archive,, and the TV reporter also tells us that in 2024 there have been 23 school shootings resulting in injuries or death and immeasurable heartache.  She goes on to say that “back to school” means “back to another school shooting.”

The inevitability in her voice catapults me back to an evening from my youth. I am watching the news in our  living room in a housing estate on the Dublin Road, wondering what will happen next and if it could possibly be worse than the last time. I am 18 years old again. The Hunger Strikes in the Maze prison are coming to a head. Ordinary people are afraid of what’s to come. It would all get worse. 

What of America? What will happen next?  It is a place where murder happens all too frequently, where schools or colleges or churches or movie theaters or grocery store parking lots or peaceful protests become killing fields, where hate – and complacency about it  – appears to be winning – all the time. 

America is now the place where kids are taught what to do in the event of a school shooting. I remember the first day my daughter brought home a “What to Do in An Active Shooter Situation” letter  from the community college system where she was taking summer classes, trying to earn some college credits while still in high school. 

Active shooter drills take place in virtually all public schools in America these days, a  legacy of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Thirty years ago, we wouldn’t have expected language from police and prison in the public school lexicon, but “code red,” active shooter” drills and “lockdowns” appear to be here to stay.

Run. Hide. Fight.

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This is not the America I dreamed about for my daughter, a place where schoolchildren are forced to hide in classroom closets while a shooter rampages the hallways. This is not what we say we want, but our cultural and policy decisions have made guns far more accessible in the United States of America  than anywhere else on the planet. If we want something different for our kids and their future, we must do something different. So what are we going to do?

“What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart,” President Biden said yesterday  before calling on Republicans to “finally say ‘enough is enough’”, and pass more gun control legislation.

Biden knows – and we do too – that without more being done to prevent another school shooting, we’re just waiting for the next one to happen hoping that it won’t happen where our children go to school.

Enough is enough. What does that look like in practice?  In Georgia, where yesterday’s school shooting happened, lawmakers don’t appear to have defined  “enough.” They have shown they can be proactive on other issues. For example, House study committees have taken deep dives on credit card fees, excise taxes, and consumer protections in the tree safety industry. Senate study committees have studied prison safety, preserving farmland, firearm storage (after failing to pass a bill on it) and caregiver services. But, the Georgia State Legislature has never – never – formed a study committee to examine how to comprehensively address school shootings.

Journalist Patricia Murphy points out that Georgia lawmakers were proactive when, afraid that white students might feel guilty depending on how a teacher taught them about slavery, they passed a bill to outline which topics teachers could present and even the kinds of questions they could ask.

In response to a transgender college student in Pennsylvania swimming in a women’s swim meet, Republican lawmakers moved to ban all transgender kids from participating on Georgia school teams different from their gender at birth. A new Senate study committee held a public hearing last week to determine what more should be done on that issue.

But yesterday in Georgia, when two teachers and two students were killed by a 14 year old boy from their own community, there was no announcement of a study to address school shootings. Instead, there were – as there always are – thoughts and prayers.

You see, a study committee would reveal to GOP lawmakers the truth which is that the millions of dollars  allocated to upgrading school security along with the what-to-do-in-an-active-shooting measures in place for K-12 students aren’t enough. The only way to stop this from happening again is to do something about the guns.

We’re learning that the 14-year-old suspect at Apalachee High School is in custody and is expected to be tried as an adult. The weapon he used was an AR-platform weapon.

While teenagers like the suspect would not have lawful access to buy a handgun, rifle, or shotgun under Georgia state law and federal law, Georgia has been ranked 46 of 50 in terms of the strength of its gun laws. State policies are described by multiple sources including the non-partisan Everytown for Gun Safety as “some of the weakest” in the nation, ranking Georgia 46th in the U.S. for the strength of its gun laws.  Adults in Georgia don’t need a permit to buy rifles, shotguns, or handguns, don’t need to register their guns with the government, and don’t need a permit to carry rifles and shotguns, according to the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. Just two years ago, Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, signed a bill making it legal for gun owners in the state to carry a concealed handgun in public without obtaining a permit, repealing provisions requiring people to obtain a license and be subject to fingerprinting and a background check before carrying concealed weapons in public spaces. At the time, Kemp said gun violence crimes were because of “criminals” who were “getting the guns anyway.”

With less than 70 days until the general election, Georgia is considered a swing state. Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature along with the offices of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state. This is reflected in its gun laws and those are reflected in the data that shows the rate of gun deaths in Georgia is increasing more rapidly than anywhere else, increasing 59% from 2012 to 2021 compared to 39% nationwide.

Georgia, enough is enough. Form a study committee. Give the gun issue at least as much consideration as credit card fees or how teachers should teach students about slavery. And then pass common sense gun safety legislation to prevent more gun violence. It’s time.

“The Cure at Troy” by Seamus Heaney

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.

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Omagh. On a sunny afternoon.

15 Thursday Aug 2024

Posted by Editor in Birthdays, bombing, IRA, John Hewitt, Loughinisland, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Omagh, Peace, Sectarianism, The Good Friday Agreement, The Peace Process, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, UVF, W.B. Yeats

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"Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto", 1994 World Cup, 2004 World Series, bombings, Boston Red Sox, Giants Stadium, Good Friday Agreement, Ireland, Irish DIASPORA, John Hewitt, New Jersey, North Antrim Coast, Northern Ireland, Omagh, REAL IRA

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“It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Last month, after almost 26 years, the British government opened the first hearing of an independent statutory inquiry into the 1998 Omagh bombing that claimed 29 lives and injured hundreds in the County Tyrone market town on 15 August 1998. 

If justice comes, it won’t be swift. The first hearing is mainly  procedural. No witnesses will be called or evidence heard until next year.  Bereaved and traumatized families and survivors must wait, as they have done for almost three decades.

They are in my thoughts as I look out on the morning from my parents house in Northern Ireland. I think it is the first time I have been back here on this date since the summer of 1998. 

A brand new mother that year, I had come home with my baby girl. Between my father, my brother, and a handful of relatives who could keep a secret – and this is no small feat in rural County Derry – we had planned a “This is Your Life” style surprise to celebrate my mother’s sixtieth birthday.  It was delicious. We had all swallowed the same secret, and my all-knowing mother was completely in the dark.

The Troubles had tainted previous visits home, but this time was different. We really believed it was over, that there would be no bombings, no shootings, no army checkpoints. There was something symbolic, magical even, in returning home with a baby in my arms to a brand new optimism fueled by The Good Friday Agreement signed only four months before.

It had been different four years before. That trip had coincided with Ireland’s qualifying for the World Cup. The country was ecstatic – factories, offices, shops, even banks, all closing early so everyone could make it home, or to the pub, in time for kick-off at the Ireland v Italy match being televised live from Giants Stadium in New Jersey. My brother and I had considered going to the pub to watch the first-round match, but daddy convinced us to stay home, have a few tins of Harp, maybe a half ‘un of Whiskey and watch from the comfort of the living room. So we stayed at home and watched on telly – in joyous disbelief –  as Ireland went up 1-0 against Italy at Giants Stadium. When the lads in green scored a goal, we roared with pride even as we were afraid to look, not unlike Boston Red Sox fans prior to the 2004 World Series.

The second half of the match was well underway when two men, their faces hidden behind balaclavas, stormed into a tiny packed pub, The Heights Bar, in the village of Loughinisland, County Down. With an AK47 and a Czech made rifle, they shot madly and indiscriminately at the sixteen men gathered around the bar watching Ireland beat Italy. They killed six of them. According to witnesses, the two gunmen laughed as they made their getaway. The first killed, Barney Green, was in his eighties, someone’s grandfather, and as I recall from the stories that later poured from that heartbroken village, he had put on his best suit to mark Ireland’s making it to the World Cup.

It chills me still to think of Barney Green struck down with such savagery in the very moment as that jubilant Irish squad burst out of an American football stadium, awash in green, buoyed by the chanting of 60,000 supporters, anticipating champagne and a night of revelry, only to be silenced and sickened by the hideous dispatch from a country pub back home. Surely that would be the last time we would hear of such horror. No. It would not. Omagh was just up the road.


For many Northern Ireland families, mine included, the youngest generation had known only a country in conflict. But in 1998, my daughter would witness a new country. The people – including my parents who had voted for the first time in their lives – wanted peace and said ‘yes’ to the question  “Do you support the Agreement reached at the multi-party talks on Northern Ireland and set out in Command Paper 3883?” It was a resounding yes from the people, in anticipation of the brand new day Northern Ireland deserved.

When my mother’s 60th birthday arrived that year, I telephoned in the morning with love and good wishes and a promise that I would arrange a trip back home soon. Yes, she had received the flowers I’d sent, and she was looking forward to going out for dinner with daddy that evening. On their way to a favorite restaurant, he took a detour for a quick visit with my Aunt Sadie, where they were greeted with delighted shrieks of “Surprise!” from the well-hidden gathering of family and friends whose cars were parked on another lane, far out of sight. One of my cousins assumed the role of This is Your Life host, Eamonn Andrews, complete with a big red book and related the story of my mother’s life to all assembled.  When she reached the part about my mother becoming a grandmother for the first time just eight months earlier, she suggested calling me so I could at least be part of the celebration by phone. Naturally, I was unavailable, given that two days earlier, I had flown in to Belfast with Sophie, and had been holed up at my Aunt Sadie’s house enjoying secret visits with my dad and my brother, the three of us delighting in the fact that my mother was oblivious to all the subterfuge.

Naturally, ma was disappointed when the phone went to voicemail, but she was quickly distracted by the doorbell ringing. Thinking it was yet another cousin or a friend with a birthday present, she opened the door, where, looking up at her from a nest of pink blankets, was her beautiful baby granddaughter. A perfectly executed surprise, planned down to the very last minute, it was one my mother would cherish always, a jewel in a box.

At about the same time, another plan was coming to fruition, a diabolical scheme, that would just a week later, rip asunder the tiny market town of Omagh in the neighboring county of Tyrone, devastating families from as near as Donegal and as far away as Madrid, Spain, and reminding us all that Northern Ireland’s Troubles were far from over.

Like most of us here, I don’t know all the details. I’m afraid of them.

It frightens me to consider the machinations of minds that could craft a plan to load a nondescript red car, plate number MDZ 5211, with 500 pounds of explosives, park it in the middle of a busy shopping area, and place two phone calls to the local television station, one to the Coleraine Samaritans, with a warning 40 minutes before the bomb inside it exploded. There was confusion as the police evacuated the shoppers – mostly mothers and children on back-to-school shopping sprees. Thinking they were moving them away from the Court House to safety, the police moved people to the bottom of Market Street, where the bomb was about to be detonated.

I wonder if they felt that familiar relief, the kind you know from past experiences of bomb-scares and hoaxes, if they felt they were out of harm’s way and just in time, believing that it would all be alright. Maybe they told themselves it was just a bomb scare, like old times, and not to be taken very seriously, but they would of course cooperate with authorities so they could get back to their Saturday afternoon shopping, seeking out bargains for backpacks and books, new uniforms and lunch-boxes, full of the promise that accompanies the start of a new school year.

omagh_imminent

Spaniard Gonzalo Cavedo and child posing by the car carrying the bomb that killed 29 people, many of whom are in the picture, including the photographer. Mr. Cavedo and the child survived. (Source: Belfast Telegraph)

Mere seconds after this photo was taken with a camera later retrieved from the rubble, the 500 pound bomb inside the red car exploded, blowing the vehicle to bits. Like a butcher’s knife, the blast cut through the row of little shops. I recall the harrowing accounts of witnesses, unable to unsee blood flowing in the gutters and pieces of people in the street, unable to put words to the savagery, the carnage before them. Little Omagh was a killing field.

We weren’t listening to the radio that afternoon, so we didn’t hear the news. My brother, his girlfriend, and my baby girl were driving around the North Antrim coast, listening to CDs of Neil Young and Paul Brady, occasionally breaking into song as we took in the wild scenery around us. We stopped occasionally so Sophie could see up close the horses and cows peering at us over gates on sun-splashed country roads. It was a beautiful, windy Irish day, and we were happy. 

We had no reason to believe anything was wrong. Why would we? But heading home at dusk, we were stopped at a police checkpoint and told to take a detour. Instantly we knew. It had happened again. My parents were at home, stunned by the same old story on the news and they were worried sick. They had no idea where we were and paced the floor until their driveway was lit up again with the headlights of my brother’s car.

There was no peace. 

Another atrocity. Another day on the calendar for the people of Northern Ireland that would leave us wondering how we would ever recover from the maddening, wrenching anguish that visited us once again. My country is so tiny – I’ve been told it fits into one third of the state of Kansas – that I imagine everyone knew someone who knew someone maimed or killed in the largest mass murder in its history.  A relative of an Antrim barman had been killed in the Omagh bombing, and I remember wondering what I could possibly say to him by way of condolences, knowing there are no adequate words.

Like so many others, I had dared to believe that peace had come to the country I had left but still loved. I should have remembered what I know can never be forgotten from The Isle of Innisfree –  that “peace comes dropping slow.”

Nothing had changed, and everything changed at 3:10PM in Omagh when the bomb exploded, injuring over 300 and killing 29 people and unborn twins. Until Britain’s High Court ruled in 2021 that there were plausible arguments that the bombing by the Real IRA militant group could have been prevented, there has been – and little reason to believe that there would be – justice. No one has ever been convicted. 

The Omagh list of dead “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 (GAA). 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.”

May we never forget them or the thousands of families still seeking justice and information about what happened to their loved ones during The Troubles. May we stand with them and protect their path to the truth, to justice, and to peace.

Bear in mind these dead.

“Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto” by John Hewitt

So I say only: Bear in mind

Those men and lads killed in the streets;

But do not differentiate between

Those deliberately gunned down

And those caught by unaddressed bullets:

Such distinctions are not relevant . . .

Bear in mind the skipping child hit

By the anonymous ricochet . . .

And the garrulous neighbours at the bar

When the bomb exploded near them;

The gesticulating deaf-mute stilled

by the soldier’s rifle in the town square

And the policeman dismembered by the booby trap

in the car . . .

Patriotism has to do with keeping

the country in good heart, the community

ordered by justice and mercy;

these will enlist loyalty and courage often,

and sacrifice, sometimes even martyrdom.

Bear these eventualities in mind also;

they will concern you forever:

but, at this moment, bear in mind these dead.

13920888_10210319570086764_6748659015835251386_n

James Barker (12) from Buncrana

Fernando Blasco Baselga(12) from Madrid

Geraldine Breslin (43) from Omagh

Deborah Anne Cartwright (20) from Omagh

Gareth Conway (18) from Carrickmore

Breda Devine (20 months) from Donemana

Oran Doherty (8) from Buncrana

Aidan Gallagher (21) from Omagh

Esther Gibson (36) from Beragh

Mary Grimes (65) from Beragh

Olive Hawkes (60) from Omagh

Julia Hughes (21) Omagh

Brenda Logue (17) from Omagh

Anne McCombe (45) from Omagh

Brian McCrory(54) from Omagh

Samantha McFarland (17) Omagh

Seán McGrath (61) from Omagh

Sean McLaughlin (12) from Buncrana

Jolene Marlow (17) Omagh

Avril Monaghan (30) from Augher

Maura Monaghan (18 months) from Augher

Alan Radford (16) Omagh

Rocio Abad Ramos (23) from Madrid

Elizabeth Rush (57) Omagh

Veda Short (46) from Omagh

Philomena Skelton (39) from Durmquin

Frederick White (60) from Omagh

Bryan White (26) from Omagh

Lorraine Wilson (15) Omagh

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Justice Delayed, Justice Denied

04 Saturday Feb 2023

Posted by Editor in Birthdays, bombing, IRA, John Hewitt, Loughinisland, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Omagh, Peace, Sectarianism, The Good Friday Agreement, The Peace Process, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, UVF, W.B. Yeats

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"Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto", 1994 World Cup, 2004 World Series, bombings, Boston Red Sox, Giants Stadium, Good Friday Agreement, Ireland, Irish DIASPORA, John Hewitt, New Jersey, North Antrim Coast, Northern Ireland, Omagh, REAL IRA

photo-62

“It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

After almost 25 years, the British government has announced it will hold an independent statutory inquiry into the 1998 Omagh bombing that claimed 29 lives and injured hundreds in the County Tyrone market town on 15 August 1998. 

For the families affected, this is a momentous decision that comes two years after a High Court judge ruled there were “plausible arguments” that there existed a “real prospect” of preventing the atrocity.  As they brace themselves for next steps and at least two more years during which they will be re-traumatized by festering questions about the bombing, I am drawn back to the summer of 1998. A brand new mother, I had taken my baby daughter back home to Northern Ireland, my lovely, tragic Northern Ireland. Between my father, my brother, and a handful of relatives who could keep a secret – and this is no small feat in rural County Derry – we had planned a “This is Your Life” style surprise to celebrate my mother’s sixtieth birthday.  It was delicious. We had all swallowed the same secret, and my all-knowing mother was completely in the dark.

The Troubles had tainted previous visits home, but this time was different. We believed it was over, that there would be no bombings, no shootings, no army checkpoints. There was something symbolic, magical even, in returning home with a baby in my arms to a brand new optimism fueled by The Good Friday Agreement signed only four months before.

It had been different four years before. That trip had coincided with Ireland’s qualifying for the World Cup. The country was ecstatic – factories, offices, shops, even banks, all closing early so everyone could make it home, or to the pub, in time for kick-off at the Ireland v Italy match being televised live from Giants Stadium in New Jersey. My brother and I had considered going to the pub to watch the first-round match, but daddy convinced us to stay home, have a few tins of Harp, maybe a half ‘un of Whiskey and watch from the comfort of the living room. So we stayed at home and watched on telly – in joyous disbelief –  as Ireland went up 1-0 against Italy at Giants Stadium. When the lads in green scored a goal, we roared with pride even as we were afraid to look, not unlike Boston Red Sox fans prior to the 2004 World Series.

The second half of the match was well underway when two men, their faces hidden behind balaclavas, stormed into a tiny packed pub, The Heights Bar, in the village of Loughinisland, County Down. With an AK47 and a Czech made rifle, they shot madly and indiscriminately at the sixteen men gathered around the bar watching Ireland beat Italy. They killed six of them. According to witnesses, the two gunmen laughed as they made their getaway. The first killed, Barney Green, was in his eighties, someone’s grandfather, and as I recall from the stories that later poured from that heartbroken village, he had put on his best suit to mark Ireland’s making it to the World Cup.

It chills me still to think of Barney Green struck down with such savagery in the very moment as that jubilant Irish squad burst out of an American football stadium, awash in green, buoyed by the chanting of 60,000 supporters, anticipating champagne and a night of revelry, only to be silenced and sickened by the hideous dispatch from a country pub back home. Surely that would be the last time we would hear of such horror. No. It would not. Omagh was just up the road.


For many Northern Ireland families, mine included, the youngest generation had known only a country in conflict. But in 1998, my daughter would witness a new country, a country at peace. The people – including my parents who had voted for the first time in their lives – wanted it, and said ‘yes’ to the question  “Do you support the Agreement reached at the multi-party talks on Northern Ireland and set out in Command Paper 3883?” It was a resounding yes from the people, in anticipation of the brand new day Northern Ireland deserved.

When my mother’s 60th birthday arrived that year, I telephoned in the morning with love and good wishes and a promise that I would arrange a trip home soon. Yes, she had received the flowers I’d sent, and she was looking forward to going out for dinner with daddy that evening. On their way to a favorite restaurant, he took a detour for a quick visit with my Aunt Sadie, where delighted shrieks of “Surprise!”exploded from the well-hidden gathering of family and friends whose cars were parked on another lane, far out of sight. One of my cousins assumed the role of This is Your Life host, Eamonn Andrews, complete with the big red book and related the story of my mother’s life to all assembled.  When she reached the part about my mother becoming a grandmother for the first time just eight months earlier, she suggested calling me so I could at least be part of the celebration by phone. Naturally, I was unavailable, given that two days earlier, I had flown in to Belfast with Sophie, and had been holed up at my Aunt Sadie’s house enjoying secret visits with my dad and my brother, the three of us delighting in the fact that my mother was oblivious to all the subterfuge.

Naturally, ma was disappointed when the phone went to voicemail, but she was quickly distracted by the doorbell ringing. Thinking it was yet another cousin or a friend with a birthday present, she opened the door, where, looking up at her from a nest of pink blankets, was her beautiful baby granddaughter. A perfectly executed surprise, planned down to the very last minute, it was one my mother would cherish always, a jewel in a box.

At about the same time, another plan was coming to fruition, a diabolical scheme, that would just a week later, rip asunder the tiny market town of Omagh in the neighboring county of Tyrone, devastating families from as near as Donegal and as far away as Madrid, Spain, and reminding us all that Northern Ireland’s Troubles were far from over.

I don’t know all the details. I’m afraid of them.

It frightens me to consider the machinations of minds that could craft a plan to load a nondescript red car, plate number MDZ 5211, with 500 pounds of explosives, park it in the middle of a busy shopping area, and place two phone calls to the local television station, one to the Coleraine Samaritans, with a warning 40 minutes before the bomb inside it exploded. There was confusion as the police evacuated the shoppers – mostly mothers and children on back-to-school shopping sprees. Thinking they were moving them away from the Court House to safety, the police moved people to the bottom of Market Street, where the bomb was about to be detonated.

I wonder if they felt that familiar relief, the kind you know from past experiences of bomb-scares and hoaxes, if they felt they were out of harm’s way and just in time, believing that it would all be alright. Maybe they told themselves it was just a bomb scare, like old times, and not to be taken very seriously, but they would of course cooperate with authorities so they could get back to their Saturday afternoon shopping, seeking out bargains for backpacks and books, new uniforms and lunch-boxes, full of the promise that accompanies the start of a new school year.

omagh_imminent

Spaniard Gonzalo Cavedo and child posing by the car carrying the bomb that killed 29 people, many of whom are in the picture, including the photographer. Mr. Cavedo and the child survived. (Source: Belfast Telegraph)

Mere seconds after this photo was taken with a camera later retrieved from the rubble, the 500 pound bomb inside the red car exploded, blowing the vehicle to bits. Like a butcher’s knife, the blast cut through the row of little shops. I recall the harrowing accounts of witnesses, unable to unsee blood flowing in the gutters and pieces of people in the street, unable to put words to the savagery, the carnage before them. Little Omagh was a killing field.

omagh-1776660

We weren’t listening to the radio that afternoon, so we didn’t hear the news. My brother, his girlfriend, and my baby girl were driving around the North Antrim coast, listening to CDs of Neil Young and Paul Brady, occasionally breaking into song as we took in the wild scenery around us. We stopped occasionally so Sophie could see up close the horses and cows peering at us over gates on country roads. It was a beautiful, windy Irish day, and we were happy. 

We had no reason to believe anything was wrong, until, heading home at dusk, we were stopped at a police checkpoint and told to take a detour. Instantly we knew. It had happened again. My parents were at home, stunned by the same old story on the news and they were worried sick. They had no idea where we were and paced the floor until their driveway was lit up again with the headlights of my brother’s car.

There was no peace. 

Another atrocity. Another day on the calendar for the people of Northern Ireland that would leave us wondering how we would ever recover from the maddening, wrenching anguish that visited us once again. My country is so tiny – I’ve been told it fits into one third of the state of Kansas – that I imagine everyone knew someone who knew someone maimed or killed in the largest mass murder in its history.  A relative of an Antrim barman had been killed in the Omagh bombing, and I remember wondering what I could possibly say to him by way of condolence, knowing there are no adequate words.

Like so many others, I had dared to believe that peace had come to the country I had left but still loved. I should have remembered what I know can never be forgotten from The Isle of Innisfree –  that “peace comes dropping slow.”

Nothing had changed, and everything changed at 3:10PM in Omagh when the bomb exploded, injuring over 300 and killing 29 people and unborn twins. Until this past week, there has been – and little reason to believe that there would be – justice. No one has been convicted. 

The Omagh list of dead “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 (GAA). 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.”

May we never forget them or the thousands of families still seeking justice and information about what happened to their loved ones during The Troubles. May we stand with them and protect their path to the truth, to justice, and to peace. They need us more than ever – especially now – as the British government is also advancing its wretched “legacy” legislation that would grant immunity from prosecution to those who cooperate in investigations of unsolved killings from the three decades of the Troubles. “We can’t bring anybody back from the dead,” said Monica McWilliams told the New York Times this week “But it’s a very timely announcement, given that there’s so much angst surrounding the legacy legislation.” It is.

Bear in mind these dead.

“Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto” by John Hewitt

So I say only: Bear in mind

Those men and lads killed in the streets;

But do not differentiate between

Those deliberately gunned down

And those caught by unaddressed bullets:

Such distinctions are not relevant . . .

Bear in mind the skipping child hit

By the anonymous ricochet . . .

And the garrulous neighbours at the bar

When the bomb exploded near them;

The gesticulating deaf-mute stilled

by the soldier’s rifle in the town square

And the policeman dismembered by the booby trap

in the car . . .

Patriotism has to do with keeping

the country in good heart, the community

ordered by justice and mercy;

these will enlist loyalty and courage often,

and sacrifice, sometimes even martyrdom.

Bear these eventualities in mind also;

they will concern you forever:

but, at this moment, bear in mind these dead.

13920888_10210319570086764_6748659015835251386_n

James Barker (12) from Buncrana

Fernando Blasco Baselga(12) from Madrid

Geraldine Breslin (43) from Omagh

Deborah Anne Cartwright (20) from Omagh

Gareth Conway (18) from Carrickmore

Breda Devine (20 months) from Donemana

Oran Doherty (8) from Buncrana

Aidan Gallagher (21) from Omagh

Esther Gibson (36) from Beragh

Mary Grimes (65) from Beragh

Olive Hawkes (60) from Omagh

Julia Hughes (21) Omagh

Brenda Logue (17) from Omagh

Anne McCombe (45) from Omagh

Brian McCrory(54) from Omagh

Samantha McFarland (17) Omagh

Seán McGrath (61) from Omagh

Sean McLaughlin (12) from Buncrana

Jolene Marlow (17) Omagh

Avril Monaghan (30) from Augher

Maura Monaghan (18 months) from Augher

Alan Radford (16) Omagh

Rocio Abad Ramos (23) from Madrid

Elizabeth Rush (57) Omagh

Veda Short (46) from Omagh

Philomena Skelton (39) from Durmquin

Frederick White (60) from Omagh

Bryan White (26) from Omagh

Lorraine Wilson (15) Omagh

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“the music of what happens”

06 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by Editor in "Crediting Poetry" - Nobel Lecture 1995, British Army, Dispatch from the Diaspora, IRA, Kingsmill Road Massacre, Northern Ireland, Ruefrex, Sectarianism, The Troubles, Themes of childhood

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Alan Black, Bandit country, Bessbrook, Kingsmill Road Massacre 40th Anniversary, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Reaveys and O'Dowds Killings, Richard Hughes, Ruefrex, Seamus Heaney, South Armagh

It is January 5, 1976 at the end of a work day, and sixteen men are in a red minibus on their way home from the Glenane textile factory  Four of them get out at Whitecross. and the van continues on to Bessbrook.  The craic turns to football and whether Manchester United or Liverpool will make it to the top of the First Division, but it is tempered by what happened the day before when six local Catholics were murdered – brothers John Martin, Brian and Anthony Reavey, and brothers Declan and Barry O’Dowd and their uncle Joe  shot dead by the Glenanne gang near Gilford. Naturally, the way none of us would have been at the time,  the men aren’t alarmed by the red lamp swinging up ahead near the Kingsmills crossroads. They had expected increased security  following yesterday’s murders – and this is South Armagh. This is “bandit country.”

What words work for what happens next? The men are ordered out of the van by gunmen in combat jackets who have been waiting for them in the hedges. This is not a British Army checkpoint.  The workers are told to line up and put their hands on the roof of the van. They are asked to state their religion – Protestant or Catholic. There is only one Catholic among them, Richard Hughes, and when he is asked to identify himself, his Protestant workmates are terrified.  In their dread, in their desire to protect him, they cover his hands with theirs.

It is this moment that is forever lodged in a tight space in that corner of my heart that never left Northern Ireland. It is this moment  – this split second of humanity – that Seamus Heaney recollects in his 1995 Nobel lecture 


One of the most harrowing moments in the whole history of the harrowing of the heart in Northern Ireland came when a minibus full of workers being driven home one January evening in 1976 was held up by armed and masked men and the occupants of the van ordered at gunpoint to line up at the side of the road. Then one of the masked executioners said to them, “Any Catholics among you, step out here”. As it happened, this particular group, with one exception, were all Protestants, so the presumption must have been that the masked men were Protestant paramilitaries about to carry out a tit-for-tat sectarian killing of the Catholic as the odd man out, the one who would have been presumed to be in sympathy with the IRA and all its actions. It was a terrible moment for him, caught between dread and witness, but he did make a motion to step forward. Then, the story goes, in that split second of decision, and in the relative cover of the winter evening darkness, he felt the hand of the Protestant worker next to him take his hand and squeeze it in a signal that said no, don’t move, we’ll not betray you, nobody need know what faith or party you belong to. All in vain, however, for the man stepped out of the line; but instead of finding a gun at his temple, he was thrown backward and away as the gunmen opened fire on those remaining in the line, for these were not Protestant terrorists, but members, presumably, of the Provisional IRA

All in vain.  In less than a minute, ten of the men are gunned down and left to die on the side of a road slippery with rain and blood.

Tit-for-tat.

Person who usually travelled with Kingsmill men 'was named as suspect' -  The Irish News


Forty-seven years later, the sole survivor, Alan Black, seeks no revenge. A survivor – and a witness –  he is often stuck in those moments when, shot 18 times, he was left for dead. Every January, he finds himself going “into countdown mode — I look at the calendar and at the clock and think to myself ‘the boys have only five days or five hours or five minutes to live’, right up to the time of the ambush.” He seeks acknowledgement and justice for the boys and their families. He seeks answers that may never come.

These men are known to me only through the tiniest details from a Belfast Telegraph article written over a decade ago “Joseph Lemmon, whose wife was standing over their tea as he died; Reginald Chapman, a Sunday school teacher who played football for Newry Town; his younger brother Walter Chapman; Kenneth Worton, whose youngest daughter had not even started school; James McWhirter, who belonged to the local Orange lodge; Robert Chambers, still a teenager and living with his parents; James McConville, who was planning to train as a missionary; John Bryans, a widower who left two children orphaned; and Robert Freeburn, who was also a father of two. The van driver, Robert Walker, came from near Glenanne.”

The answers may never come, nor justice, given what many of us expect with regard to the Legacy Bill. We know families of victims have waited decades for truth and justice. We know some have died, old and heartbroken, without answers or acknowledgement. The truth – and acknowledgement of wrongdoing – demands courageous and arduous work that can be trusted. It demands a commitment to accountability, and an assurance for everyone – everyone – that the historical record will stand the test of time. As Susan McCay once reminded us “The absence of reconciliation has never been more starkly apparent, and as usual, those most hurt in the past are hurt again.”

What also remains for us and what belongs to us, is humanity and courage on the side of a country road in South Armagh forty years ago. We would do well to hold on to it.

The birth of the future we desire is surely in the contraction which that terrified Catholic felt on the roadside when another hand gripped his hand, not in the gunfire that followed, so absolute and so desolate, if also so much a part of the music of what happens.

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From there to here . . .

Yvonne hails from Antrim, Northern Ireland, and has lived in the desert southwest of the United States for almost thirty years. Married, with a daughter who is navigating her path through the "teen tunnel," and a haughty cat, Atticus, she has spent the better part of the last three decades in the classroom as a student, teacher, and administrator. Her mid-life crisis came as a sneaky Stage II invasive breast cancer diagnosis which subsequently sent her to the blogosphere where she found a virtual home away from home . . .
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