Book Review: Enniskillen

It's one of my earliest memories. A Sunday evening, I was sitting on my knees in our living room, using the settee as my table to eat my dinner. As always, the television was on, and our eyes were glued to the screen. Images of horror and devastation were being shown, a bomb attack in Enniskillen, as people were gathering to commemorate the war dead at the war memorial on Poppy Day. Remembrance Sunday, the 8th November 1987.

It's now twenty-five years ago since that scene in our front room, but I can still remember it. I'm not sure I can remember much, if anything, before then. The name of Enniskillen was imprinted in my mind.

For the tenth anniversary of the bombing, the Editor of the local newspaper, The Impartial Reporter, Denzil McDaniel produced a book, simply entitled 'Enniskillen: The Remembrance Sunday Bombing.' Fifteen years since it came out, and in advance of this latest milestone, I read the book, discovering more information about what happened that day, and the stories of those murdered and injured in the attack.

McDaniel puts his journalistic training to excellent effect, as he provides the narrative framework and background details, but allows individuals and their families to tell their own stories. It's a powerful, moving, emotional read, perhaps even essential for anyone to hear how one attack among so many affected so many lives in one small town in rural Northern Ireland.

With the delay of ten years, McDaniel is able to trace the people as they have dealt with the events of that terrible day. As a community gathered together, it was a dastardly attack on the whole community, and there are frank interviews with political leaders, ranging from Sir Bernard Ingham (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Press Secretary), through local MP of the time, Ken Maginnis to Gerry Adams.

Perhaps the most encouraging feature of the whole book is the repeated refrain of the importance of the Christian faith, not only to the twelve people murdered, but also to so many of the relatives and injured. The hope and strength and comfort provides a vivid testimony to the grace and goodness of God even in times of darkness and evil actions. I'm not entirely sure how much McDaniel understands of it, based on the way he describes it sometimes, but he certainly reports the accounts and interviews of the individuals so that their words and faith shines through.

Written in autumn 1997, the book comes at a precise moment in time and Irish history, before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, before the power-sharing executive in Stormont, and chillingly, before the even bigger devastation of the Omagh bomb. As he writes in his final paragraph:

'Enniskillen has come through its troubled day in 1987 extremely well. But in writing this book, the one thing that I found unnerving was the realisation that there is still the potential in Northern Ireland for more Ennsikillens. It seems remarkable that in a society that has suffered so much, we have not quite reached a point where such an awful event can be ruled out. It may seem like a cliche, but the simple fact is that we must learn to live together. We must find agreement, including a political settlement, that allows this generation and future generations to share this land in a peaceful way, fully recognising the richness of both traditions.'

How sad that, in this twenty-fifth anniversary week, we are still burying the victims of terrorism, with final peace still beyond our grasp.

All in all, while it is not an easy book to read, nevertheless it is an important book, and one that is well worth reading. The voice of the victims cannot be silenced; their story must be heard.

7/7 Five Years On

Time seems to move so quickly, yet the memories are vivid. Particularly in dealing with terrorist incidents, those caught up in the events will never forget, while the rest of the world moves on and barely remembers at all. It was the case with the terrorism in Northern Ireland, and also with the more recent terrorist attacks in Madrid, London and various other places.

The media have been covering the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 atrocity today, when the transport network in London was attacked by a co-ordinated series of bombs, just the day after London had learnt that it was to host the 2012 Olympic Games. 52 innocent people died, as well as the suicide bombers themselves, and hundreds were injured as the bombs exploded on underground trains (the Tube), and on a double decker bus.

Strangely, I was in London that day. I had travelled over to London with Stanley and David for the Proclamation Trust Student Minister's Preaching Conference, four days of honing the skills needed to handle and teach God's word. For those looking on from outside, it was a worrying time - the mobile phone networks couldn't cope, so contact was virtually impossible, so the only source of information was the TV news reports.

In London, things were very confused. At the time, I blogged about that day when I got home to Northern Ireland. We slept in that morning, and on getting to Victoria, the underground was shut, leading to thousands of people trying to jump on buses. We headed on a bus so far (passing Betty Boothroyd walking down Victoria Street), then had to walk the rest of the way.

I remember an anxious moment on the bus when someone with a strong Irish accent was talking on his mobile phone and said "So it's happening then?" and reached into his rucksack... But it turned out to be Muslim terrorists, rather than those of Irish extraction.

Perhaps the most bizarre point of the day came when David and myself went on the London by night bus tour - the driver seeking to return to normal life as quickly as possible, and to show that Londoners wouldn't be defeated by such terror tactics.

Scenes of carnage, similar to many bomb attacks here in Northern Ireland, and many victims left with continuing scars, both physical and psychological. Remember those who are suffering today, and who lost loved ones as they journeyed to work.

Another day of man's evil towards man. Another day of sickness and suffering. But one day these things will have perished, and all things will be restored. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Memories Repeated?

One of my clearest memories from childhood is the evening of 8th November 1987. I was 6 years old at the time, and the TV news was on. Those from Northern Ireland will recognise the date, as the day the IRA bombed the Poppy Day Parade in Enniskillen. I wasn't very old, yet I remember thinking that this was terrible, and that there were evil men and women destroying things and murdering people.

The following year, the Troubles visited Dromore for the first time in my memory*, when Terence Delaney was murdered by the UFF while waiting for a lift to work on 6th July 1988. These things had always happened in other places, but now, my home town was the setting for violence and murder too.

Bad memories for children to grow up with. One can only wonder what those who lived at such close quarters must deal with - those children who grew up without a father because of a murder, or those whose houses were attacked because their family served to protect the entire community of Northern Ireland in the Police or UDR.

Talking to some young people at church on Sunday after the double murder of soldiers at Massereene barracks in Antrim occured on Saturday night, it appears that they have no recollection of the Troubles of violence. For many, this is their first taste of the shock of terrorist activity. Such memories will have been compounded following the murder last night of Constable Stephen Paul Carroll in Craigavon, the first member of the PSNI to be murdered by terrorists.

We cannot allow the current generation of young people to grow up in the fear and uncertainty that my generation knows only too well. That is why all decent people must stop the Real IRA and Continuity IRA (who are probably the same people) from dragging us back to the past and resuming the darkest days of the Troubles. And may the so-called Loyalists not take up their arms again to counter this threat - such an action would escalate things further and be destructive of everything.

No more children need to have tarnished memories sullied by the evil acts of terrorists. Please God, restrain the hand of evil men, and grant us peace in this land. Amen.

* Three members of the Herron family had died in an IRA incendiary bomb attack on their family shop and residence in Market Square, Dromore in April 1976, but this was before I was born.

Return To Terror

Normally on a Sunday morning, I catch some news before I head out to church, but this morning I missed the radio updates. I was shocked, therefore, to hear that two soldiers were murdered, probably by Republican Dissidents last night at Massereene Barracks in Antrim town. A return to the bad old days of terrorism and murder.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the murdered soldiers, and also with the injured soldiers and pizza delivery men.

Please God, that we don't return to the days of murder and evil.

Sadly, it was looking increasingly likely that they would 'get lucky.' Terry Spence, from the Police Foundation said on Radio Ulster that if the republican terrorists had been successful in their recent murder bids, then 45 police officers would have died. Now, though, they have targeted the army, in a cruel, heartless, cowardly attack. It's encouraging at least to see the leadership of Sinn Fein calling for people to help with the police investigation, and (eventually) condemning the murderers.

Will the murders succeed in taking us backwards, or will they be counter-productive to the terrorist agenda and stir up our community to continue to build peace? Time will tell.

On Human Nature

Driving home the other night, I couldn't help feeling that republican ethics are somewhat screwed up. The news on Cool FM was reporting about the driver of Gerry Adams, who it appears was an informer for the British. Despite there being 'peace' in Northern Ireland, he has fled the province and is living in protective custody on the mainland.

The radio news had a snippet of an interview with one of the Sinn Fein Assembly Members, who was speaking about his case. The Sinn Fein MLA talked about how the British had always tried to recruit people involved in the republican movement to provide information. Most people refused to give in, but sometimes, individuals succumbed to the pressure, or the lure of the rewards - and that was just human nature, he supposed.

I found this comment incredibly ironic. For members of the republican movement to complain about someone's ethics in the selling of information is a sick joke. These are the same people who willingly and deliberately set out to murder and maim hundreds of innocent men, women and children. Or maybe there's a different set of ethics for murder than for greed?

9-11 five years on

So there we are... five years on from one of the 'big' terrorist shocks of recent times - although coming from Northern Ireland, terrorism is terrorism, and things seem to soon move on, as we're grabbed by the next big atrocity.

I can well remember the day. The sun was shining, I was standing in work, on the last day of my summer job in an industrial estate in Lisburn, in the last summer before I graduated from university, so this was my last summer job (well, until I became a student once again...) We were probably talking about football, or the sun, or moaning about the poor pay, as we worked on the production line, with the radio on - normally Radio 1 or Cool in the morning, but after lunchtime, it was switched to Radio Ulster so the older supervisor could hear the songs from her youth, as Hugo Duncan broadcast them...

When suddenly, Hugo wasn't on any more. Reports were coming in that a plane had crashed into a building in New York. One of the guys went buck daft, cos he recognised what the building was from films... And as he was trying to explain what it looked like, and how we should all know it from whatever film, suddenly, reports came in of another plane hitting the other tower... What on earth was happening?

And then home (eventually) from work forever, and seeing the tv footage, the carnage, the damaged lives. Dear oh. Shocking altogether.

And what has changed? Has there been anything good come out of the bad? After all, the terrorist attack on America provoked the war on terror by Bush and Blair... in which they hunt ghosts and claim it in the name of security. Yet I think we have seen some good come from it - without being rude, suddenly America saw what terrorism was all about - those who had funded and supported 'the struggle for freedom' in Ireland were seeing firsthand what it is really like for terrorism to be operating... to have the loss of life, the devastation, the economic problems, the emotional damage. And connected to this, but also more far-reaching, suddenly terrorism wasn't seen as an acceptable weapon for use by the IRA. On the world stage, terrorists are now listened to less, and not quite as acceptable as before.

I do believe it is for these reasons (as well as political expediency, don't get me wrong here...) that we haven't seen the IRA killing as many people recently, and certainly not trying the big disasters... because it isn't fashionable and doesn't fit on the world stage. But what happens if they decide they are going to kick off again? After all, are the dissidents really dissident, or is it a way of the top boys keeping them happy during the 'ceasefire'? Even recently we have seen what damage a couple of fellas can do with incendiary devices - ruining was it 5 businesses in Newry. How long before it spreads?