I Dreamt Of The Troubles

Northern Ireland, it was a peaceful Saturday of August 15, 1998. There were many people shopping in the center of Omagh, in Tyrone. Then, at 3:10 p.m., the car bomb exploded close to the junction of Market Street and the Dublin Road. The bomb, the murderous bomb, the life taker ripped into the flesh, the existence of 29 people, men, women, children, including 2 unborn babies. It injured 220. Britain's PM Tony Blair, Marjorie Mowlam, the Secretary of State Northern Ireland, Mary McAleese, President of the Republic of Ireland, Bernie Aherne, the taoiseach Irish PM, all condemned this slaughter of humanity. The Irish National Liberation Army called itself the "real" IRA, claimed responsibility. They had slain God's own. I dreamt of the Troubles, as mournful Celtic music slowly played in my sorrowed psyche. Blood on the shamrocks as the bombing victims still tell their story. In my daydreams, children's choirs sing- "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" in many other areas of the world, in the merriment of children's goodness. Death should not collect especially the young, the hopes of all of Ireland's youth, including Northern Ireland. These days gang violence has made more shamrocks bleed, as the gangs murder each other's dreams. All of the emerald beauty's Troubles cannot fade into history without the names of the innocents, and their blood will not disappear. The tears of generations of her people, her mourners, in every one of her rainfalls. And I, an American of both Irish and British heritage, grieve for her too. ~