27 August 1998 Edition
After Omagh
By Meadbh Gallagher
Omagh was our bomb. It had all the hallmarks, as Commander Churchill Coleman used to say. It was not the bomb of Martin McGuinness or Gerry Adams or Rita O'Hare or others in the leadership of Sinn Fein.
That must be abundantly clear by now, even to those who beforehand, still stuck to a notion spinning in some media circles that Sinn Fein was prepared to turn a blind eye to `dissidents' to avoid dissent.
It was not the bomb of the IRA; that too is clear. It came at the end of a long protracted military struggle, like an aftershock - all the more to remind us of all that had went before.
It had nothing to do with republicanism, true, but it had everything to do with republicans. It had everything to do with republicans because a number of republicans planned and planted a big commercial bomb, one among many, because they thought they could reverse a tide and also blow a Sinn Féin-led settlement strategy into smithereens.
It had everything to do with republicans because it has a lot to do with all those in what's called the republican family who treated the political struggles as second-class citizens to the main man, the military one.
It has everything to do with republicans because in one reading of it, it was part of a bombing campaign that was an after-effect of a terrible load republicans carried, isolated and estranged from nationalist Ireland, for over two decades.
In another reading, some who were amongst us were simply not willing to look for another way.
Whatever their motivation, the effect of the bomb has been to feed the military-security agenda in the Irish and British states, to secure the position of a paramilitary police force, and to fuel a witch hunt on all political dissenters which republicans all over the country will soon have to face.
And then there were 28 dead and hundreds injured and bereaved. For all of that, those who pursued the military agenda must take full responsibility.
But ordinary republicans who cannot face up to a future without armed struggle must claim this bomb as their own also, however much we do not want to touch it.
``These people are not republicans'', some said. Well they are, always will be. When it is so easy and so right that we should distance ourselves from it, it is also so truly one of our own.
Omagh was our bomb. It had all the hallmarks, as Commander Churchill Coleman used to say. It was not the bomb of Martin McGuinness or Gerry Adams or Rita O'Hare or others in the leadership of Sinn Fein.
That must be abundantly clear by now, even to those who beforehand, still stuck to a notion spinning in some media circles that Sinn Fein was prepared to turn a blind eye to `dissidents' to avoid dissent.
It was not the bomb of the IRA; that too is clear. It came at the end of a long protracted military struggle, like an aftershock - all the more to remind us of all that had went before.
It had nothing to do with republicanism, true, but it had everything to do with republicans. It had everything to do with republicans because a number of republicans planned and planted a big commercial bomb, one among many, because they thought they could reverse a tide and also blow a Sinn Féin-led settlement strategy into smithereens.
It had everything to do with republicans because it has a lot to do with all those in what's called the republican family who treated the political struggles as second-class citizens to the main man, the military one.
It has everything to do with republicans because in one reading of it, it was part of a bombing campaign that was an after-effect of a terrible load republicans carried, isolated and estranged from nationalist Ireland, for over two decades.
In another reading, some who were amongst us were simply not willing to look for another way.
Whatever their motivation, the effect of the bomb has been to feed the military-security agenda in the Irish and British states, to secure the position of a paramilitary police force, and to fuel a witch hunt on all political dissenters which republicans all over the country will soon have to face.
And then there were 28 dead and hundreds injured and bereaved. For all of that, those who pursued the military agenda must take full responsibility.
But ordinary republicans who cannot face up to a future without armed struggle must claim this bomb as their own also, however much we do not want to touch it.
``These people are not republicans'', some said. Well they are, always will be. When it is so easy and so right that we should distance ourselves from it, it is also so truly one of our own.