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Effective today, the contact details for the Northern Ireland Veterans' Association have changed to the following

The Secretary
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DE24 8FX

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Peace to be Omagh’s memorial

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  • Peace to be Omagh’s memorial



    Peace to be Omagh’s memorial

    Monday, 11 August 2008


    Even at the remove of a decade, the immensity of the Omagh bombing is staggering. Thirty-one lives brutally destroyed and hundreds more damaged beyond repair in one gruesome afternoon, at a time when Northern Ireland was beginning to show a tentative understanding that peace was finally at hand. At the tail-end of our nasty little conflict came its most vicious blow. There is almost a Biblical irony in the idea that the death throes of the Troubles produced more death, on a devastating scale.

    Which is one reason why the tenth anniversary of the massacre is so important. It is both a measure of how far we have come since that time and an ugly reminder of how fragile our assumptions about peace, about reconciliation, even about an afternoon’s shopping can be. The common remark at funerals is so often repeated because there is wisdom in it: “You never know the day or the hour”.

    The ceremony that will take place in Omagh on Friday at three o’clock — the same date and time the bomb exploded ten years ago — is the uneasy crossroad where public commemoration meets private grief. The families of some victims have already indicated they will not attend; some because they disagree with the memorial, others no doubt because they do not wish to put their own feelings on display.

    It’s unfortunate that the memory of Omagh can leave such a divided situation, but some events have so much wider significance that they do require public acknowledgement. It would be worse if the anniversary was left unmarked. The facts of Omagh are as simple as they are terrible: a stolen Vauxhall Cavalier, with explosives packed in the boot, was parked in the town’s busiest shopping street on Saturday, August 15th.
    After three inadequate telephone warnings by the Real IRA bombers, it exploded with people still thronged about it.

    Thirty-one died, including unborn twins, hundreds were injured and hundreds more were bereft. It was an attack on everyone: Protestants, Catholics, the old, the very young, Omagh-born and Spanish tourists were among the dead.

    The context of the attack was also shocking, because the bombing came less than four months after the Belfast Agreement and the hope it brought for an end to such events. Hesitantly, Northern Ireland was beginning to feel like a relaxed place.

    The terrible scale of Omagh is the main reason why it will receive wider recognition this week than many other anniversaries, but that does not diminish them. Friday is the 35th anniversary for Edward Drummond, a barrow boy killed by a UVF bomb not much smaller than the Omagh device. It is the 34th anniversary of Joseph McGuinness, a 13-year-old shot by the UDA on his way to get chips. It is the 17th of Ronnie Finlay, a former UDA man shot repeatedly by the IRA in front of his children. The grief of those they left behind is no less.


    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/op...?service=Print

  • #2
    remember

    Something we can never forget, I wish i could somehow get this all over Yank tv, they paid for it.
    Bitter of Brisbane.
    Spanners do it with their tools.

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    • #3
      Here is another Photo from N I. One the Yanks forget when they place there dollar bills in the Noraid tin.



      December 1971 An ambulance man carries the body of baby Colin Nicholl from the wreckage of the Balmoral Furnishing Company on the Shankill Road in Belfast following a 'no warning' Provisional IRA bomb which killed 2 babies and 2 adults as well as injuring scores of other people on a Saturday afternoon - just before Christmas. Picture by Alan Lewis

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      • #4
        remember

        Remember Kieth, it is the i r a, the only capital they deserve is CAPITAL PUNISHMENT :x :x :x
        Spanners do it with their tools.

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        • #5
          We Will Remember Them


          bobc...........

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          • #6
            We will remember them

            But we will never forget the bastards who did it or funded it. Stuff Tony Blair
            "What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”
            Salman Rushdie

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            • #7
              The guilty parties in this are not just the scum who bombed, but the politicians who saw indirectly that no one was ever convicted. This is one peace of the troubles that can never be swept under the carpet of history. We can have a "Bloody Sunday" enquiry, oh how I would love a government funded one into this.
              God rest their souls.

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              • #8
                For varying reasons there has been a lot of pressure for an inquiry into the atrocity, one that would be 'cross-border' which would involve the governments of NI and the Republic.

                The families of the victims want one to draw together information from both countries' intelligence agencies, hoping to get some form of truth. This may help them in their current court action against those alleged to be involved directly in the bombing.But it is unlikely that any inquest will begin until their action ends.

                Sinn Fein want one too, hoping to discredit the RUC investigation and the action or otherwise of the Special Branch and the British int agencies, and for any criticism to flow forward onto the PSNI. It is part of another game they are playing at the minute....devolution of control of the justice and police system.

                The people who are resisting this the most are the British Government and the Stormont Assembly, connected to the reasons stated above.

                'The more things change, the more they stay the same'.

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                • #9
                  Interesting point about Sinn Fien Stevie, is it more likely they want to distance themselves from the Real IRA? Being a respectable political party is what they desire most within the EU. The Spanish gave the Basques a chance but when things started to go against them out came the semtex and other things that go bang!

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                  • #10
                    Sinn Fein are in a difficult position, Compo - having fought a campaign from the Republic for so long, last year their election campaign there was a disaster, ending with them being in a worse state than when they started.
                    Their party machine is stronger and bigger in the North, so they are really in need of 'winning back' the Republic, while having to tow the line as 'respectable politicians' to keep the power they have gained in the North. The problem there is, the Republic population a) don't want the North and b) don't want Sinn Fein.
                    So the continual attacks and posturing of the CIRA and RIRA in various places - especially the areas that are powerbases for SF MEPs and their leaders - is an embarrassment and a pain in the arse for the party's attempts to 'go legit'. They have to appear in control and in the right, same old Provie mind games, but its getting harder to keep a lid on what is degenerating into criminal activity by former terrorists.

                    These 'dissidents' are denounced regularly by various SF reps on tv and radio, but much as they would like to, the party cannot deal with them in the way they would like, ie dumped on the border with their heads in plastic bags.

                    So we all know what's going on, but no-one wants to say it openly, for fear of the great Ulster gravy train being blown off the tracks.

                    To quote the film 'JFK' - "we're through the looking glass, people, where white is black and black is white."

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                    • #11
                      I like the quote mate, that about sums it up from here as well. a mate of mine from the south thinks much the same as you, it seems that some mainland parties ( political ) want to get in on the act as I read the tories have been making overtures to various folks there about establishing a presence.
                      We went through the province last year on a trip, sad to say but in some parts I looked and thought nothings changed, walls and graffiti say a lot!

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                      • #12
                        A lot of the Loyalist grafitti is being transformed into more acceptable images, ie 'Loyal Sons of Ulster' with figures in combats and carrying rifles, is now 'George Best - proud son' etc, etc.

                        The nationalist areas are also 'maturing' their 'miltary icons' by building stone monuments and more 'acceptable' memorials. The only 'old-style' grafitti appears in areas aligned to the dissident groups (there is one in my town) and on some of the areas popular with US tourists in Belfast and Derry, to give them a bit 'historical flavour'. (Translation: film-set b/s).

                        Give it five years and this place will be like effing Essex with really funny accents, and 40% will speak some form of Eastern European language.
                        Anyone know what 'Tiocaidh Ar La' is in Polish?

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                        • #13
                          JA byłby mieć wy w położeniach mojego *SLR* *Gerry* mnie chłopiec
                          which in English means
                          I would to have you in the sites of my SLR Gerry me boy
                          Give what you want in English I will come up the Polish

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                          • #14
                            Sends a bit of a shiver to think I walked up that very street on a regular basis back in 73,

                            They must never be forgotten, RIP

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                            • #15
                              Lol Kiehud, but a 7.62 round is the same in any language! Bags me first pot!

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