3.10pm: Omagh in silent grief for its dead

OMAGH HONOURED its dead and consoled its injured yesterday, seeking solace from its tragedy in a collective act of grieving and remembrance in the centre of the Co Tyrone town. The ceremony took place on the first anniversary of the Omagh bombing, at the spot in Market Street where a car bomb planted by the Real IRA claimed 29 lives and injured more than 200 people on a busy Saturday afternoon.

Thousands of people congregated at the site yesterday, some of them visiting the scene again for the first time since the explosion which injured them or robbed them of relatives. They prayed and they stood in complete silence at 3.10pm, the moment when the device went off in a street packed with people who had just been moved towards it after an inaccurate bomb warning.

The Omagh ceremony, with its evocation of peace and consolation, stood in stark counterpoint to the violence which had just flared overnight in Northern Ireland, 40 miles away in Londonderry. Nationalist youths had clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary and set fire to a number of shops in protest against a loyalist march.

Earlier, there had been other disturbances in Belfast and the town of Lurgan, with police and nationalists again clashing.

Yesterday's emotional occasion began with the pealing of church bells, a lament played by a piper and prayers in English, Irish and Spanish. The multi-lingual element was designed to commemorate the fact that three of the dead were visitors from Co Donegal while two were on holiday from Madrid.

A simultaneous service was held in the Donegal town of Buncrana in remembrance of the three young boys who went to Omagh, became caught up in the explosion and died there.

Later, a number of people took part in a symbolic pouring of water in tribute to all those who had shed tears for the loss of loved ones. They included 68-year old Margaret McKinney, whose son's body was recently recovered after 21 years, and Rita Restorick, whose son Stephen was the last soldier to die in Northern Ireland, in 1997.

The prayers and speeches included hopes that the political vacuum created by the failure of talks in early July might soon be ended. In a closing prayer, the Omagh council chairman, Alan Rainey, declared: "We remember our community and political leaders and representatives and ask that you will grant them wisdom and sensitivity in their efforts to help us live with one another. May they, like we, be instruments of your peace and channels of your blessing."

Quite a few of those affected by the bomb, however, could not bring themselves to go back to Market Street yesterday. A number of the survivors and bereaved have allowed themselves to be interviewed by the media on the occasion of the anniversary, but others remain silent.

A glimpse of their torment was described by a Catholic priest who said at the weekend: "Some have sought the safety of distance from the pit of grief. Some are lost in the unreachable depths of agonising loss."

A Church of Ireland minister affirmed that Protestant loss was no different from Catholic loss: "Some are positive. Some are totally negative and are suffering still in the nightmare of that silent moment when for them the world stopped and blackness deeper than the eclipse filled their soul.

"They are that way even yet. These want no anniversary service, nor press attention, nor trauma team help. They are not ready. God knows when, if ever, they will be ready to move on."

Yesterday's ceremony wasdesigned not just to look back and remember but also to look ahead. The gathering took place next to sites where builders are laying the foundations for new premises to replace those demolished in the explosion.

The hope for renewal and rebirth was expressed by Dr Haldane Mitchell, a retired local GP, who said: "The earth of our Market Street, where such cruel barbarity was done to our dearest ones and to all of us by the explosion's fierce cutting blast, is being prised open again to receive the foundations of our rebirth-building."

At the weekend, the authorities pledged maximum efforts to secure the conviction of the bombers. Tony Blair said in a message: "The whole community in Northern Ireland andacross the world has felt moved to reach out to those affected by the bombing. I assure them their suffering will not be forgotten."

The Irish Foreign Minister, David Andrews, said in a tribute: "Omagh has become a byword for fortitude, resilience and a spirit of community. The efforts of all who have dedicated themselves to the work of healing and rebuilding has been inspirational."

Londonderry riots, page 2