Bloody past must never be repeated

IT is 20 years since Ireland and the world was devastated by the horror of the cowardly Omagh Bombing.

On August 15, 1998, 29 innocent people, including a pregnant woman with twins, were killed in a car bomb that ripped through the Co Tyrone town.

Those tragic victims came from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, England and Spain. The atrocity was claimed by a republican splinter group which called itself, pathetically, the Real IRA.

Over three decades of horror it was one of the darkest of days – leaving a community forever in tragic remembrance.

If one fragment of good can come from the mass murder on that day then it is the effort to never repeat the atrocities of old.

It should also be a warning to Northern politicians engaged in the silly game of political chess. Their obligation must only be to the legacy of peace and to never plunge our island back to the callous destruction of life.

Much has ben achieved since that day in 1998 – the streets of the North are, for the most part, peaceful now.

There is a clear commitment by the good, decent people both North and South of the border to continue the pursuit of peace.

Let that clarion call of the good people of Ireland make the tragic deaths of 29 people and unborn twins be the lasting epitaph.