The service was held on Sunday, 16th August, 1998, at O’Raghallaighs, North Road, Drogheda as an immmediate local expression of grief and sympathy for the people of Omagh.

Address of Julitta Clancy (Meath Peace Group):

Thank you all for coming. Your presence here today in such large numbers is testimony to the great good that is the real Ireland. I would like particularly to thank the organisers, the Drogheda Ecumenical Peace Group, for all their hard work over several months in preparing for this service, and for giving us a much-needed opportunity to come together today to pray for peace and reconciliation in our land at this most crucial time.

Omagh bombing:

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Omagh today in their great sorrow - and our hearts go out to the families and friends of the victims in their inconsolable grief and pain. Those who carried out this evil act have no mandate from the Irish people and no political message. Driven by hatred and self-interest, they seek to subvert the will of the people of Ireland by attacking innocent men, women and little children going about their daily lives. They shame the name of Ireland. Our voices must come out clearly now - we must show our solidarity with the people of Omagh and all who have suffered over the past 30 years. There is a need now for a day of national mourning and we in the south must stand up to that tiny and twisted minority in our community who preach death and destruction in the name of misguided republicanism. We cannot undo their treacherous deed but we must resist with all our might their efforts to destroy the fragile hopes for peace.

Legacy of violence:

This attack is part of the continuing legacy of violence that has so often scarred and wounded the soul of Ireland. The last 30 years have seen many horrific and evil acts - terrible and unjustifiable things. The perpetrators, whatever side they came from, claimed their acts were justified by the cause they served. But the only cause they have served is the cause of evil. If ever we wanted an example of the bankruptcy and futility of violence we have it today in Omagh as we had it in Ballymoney on July 12th, when three little children were burned to death.

On May 22nd this year, in an unprecedented act of national self-determination the people of Ireland North and South ratified the Good Friday Agreement and clearly and unequivocally rejected the men and women of violence. Violence is wrong today as it was wrong over the past 30 years. It is futile and unjustified today as it has been over the past 30 years. It is evil.

We welcome the expressions of condemnation by the Sinn Fein leadership, but there is an onus now on those who previously espoused violence and who are now pursuing the democratic route to do more than just renounce this latest violence. They must declare their own wars are over and move quickly to get rid of their weapons of destruction in whatever manner. They must stop their "punishment" beatings and shootings. They must acknowledge the pain they have caused and seek forgiveness. They have a duty, too, to give any information they may have on marginal groups to the police services in both jurisdictions in order that these evil men and women are brought to justice. All these things must be done, not simply as confidence-building measures, but in the manner of true and responsible democrats, responding to the clearly expressed wish of the people.

Appeal to Unionists opposed to the Agreement:

We call on those unionist politicians who opposed the Good Friday Agreement to now accept the democratic will of the people and support the new Assembly, in the best interests of their own people and all the people of Northern Ireland. We understand their fears and uncertainties but their failure to engage in this process is only feeding the forces of terrorism.

Fragile peace:

The Good Friday Agreement and the Assembly elections proved that peace can became a reality, but it is a fragile peace, as evidenced by these recent events. Not for the first time we feel helpless and powerless, near to despair - there seems no end to it. But we mustn’t let ourselves be blinded or deflected from our course - we’ve been down this road so many times before. Violence is not going to succeed - we cannot let it. We will not let it.

Signs of hope:

At times of great sadness such as we are in today, we can forget the signs of hope, but thankfully there have been many such over the years and in recent weeks, most notably the achievement of the Good Friday Agreement and its ratification. The parades, with the sad exception of Drumcree, passed off relatively peacefully - due mainly to the determination and good will of ordinary people on the ground. We witnessed this ourselves when we were invited to send neutral observers to a number of parades in Fermanagh in July and August (something we have done for the past 3 years). We saw residents groups acting responsibly, working hard to ensure that their protests took place in a dignified and peaceful manner. We saw members of the loyal orders working to ensure that their parades were conducted in a peaceful and dignified manner. We saw, in the parades we observed, members of the RUC acting with respect and sensitivity to both sides. And, though there wasn’t dialogue between the loyal orders and the residents groups in these cases, there was, we felt, the beginning of a mutual understanding which hopefully will lead on to dialogue. There have been many such hopeful signs, some coming from the most unlikely places, and we must take heart from them and build upon them.

Good Friday Agreement:

We are in a time of change. This historic Agreement has changed the political landscape forever, and has presented us with a unique opportunity and a new constitutional imperative. It is the people’s blueprint - the only way forward that we possess. There may be parts of it that are unpalatable to us - indeed the early release of paramilitary prisoners is a bitter pill for many, particularly as there are no apparent signs of decommissioning, no end to the punishment beatings, no acknowledgement of the appalling wrongs that have been done, no admission of sorrow.

But the prisoners’ issue must not deflect us - it is a necessary element in the painful process that we are going through, but it is only one element. The real thrust of the Agreement is that it has given us the opportunity to shape a better future for the children of this island, both North and South, to free ourselves at last from the domination of the past and put behind us the bitter legacies of history, to work to heal the painful wounds of a centuries-old conflict, to move at last beyond hate, fear and suspicion, towards understanding, maturity, mutual respect and real equality.

Challenge for us now - guardians of each other’s rights:

There is a challenge facing all of us now - can we live up to the lofty aspirations which we ourselves endorsed in that Agreement? Can we, both the politicians and the ordinary people who are so central to the achievement of peace and stability, commit ourselves to the promotion of the ideals of "reconciliation", "tolerance", "equality" and "mutual respect"? Can we bring ourselves to seek to fully understand the reality behind these words, the sacrifices we will have to be prepared to make, the changes of attitude required in order to bring about a tolerant and fair society throughout the island?

Can we, as was put to our own group recently by a welfare officer working with loyalist prisoners, become "guardians of each other’s rights"? That is a revolutionary thought - a whole new mode of thinking.

But that is what the Agreement is about - that is what the future of this island depends on - that is the new imperative for us, whether we call ourselves nationalist or unionist, republican or loyalist, Catholic or Protestant. It is a new imperative for us but is it not the Christian imperative?

What we can do:

The politicians and governments have their work cut out for them in seeing through the implementation of the Agreement. But the question arises - what can we as individuals, particularly those of us living in the Republic, do in a practical way to help promote peace and reconciliation and what is necessary in order that we truly become "guardians of each other’s rights", and "instruments of peace"?

First of all, we can vow never again to turn our backs as we have often done in the past, when we may perhaps have condemned violence but never got down to working at trying to find solutions. We must be eternally vigilant, both in demanding justice and fair treatment, but also in resisting violence. We can support and encourage those already working for peace, we can play our own part in helping to promote normal politics in Northern Ireland and the normalisation of relations between North and South, we can promote friendship and co-operation in many areas.

But we can go further. We can try and open our own hearts and minds and look at our own attitudes, examining them in the light of the new imperative given us in the Good Friday Agreement and not allowing ourselves to be limited by narrow nationalism or the demands of the past. We can engage in honest and inclusive dialogue aimed at promoting genuine understanding and accommodation - supporting the process of dialogue that must now take place all over the island and which has been so lacking in the past. And we can assume responsibility now for passing on to the future the means whereby our young people can help to resolve this ancient quarrel and carry the work of reconciliation to fruition. That means promoting programmes in schools that will enable the young people to understand the various issues, encouraging them towards genuine respect for the validity of the various identities and empowering them to work to find solutions.

Challenge for Christians:

For those of us who take our Christian commitment seriously there is an additional challenge. The bells ring out today in this City of Churches and people from several different denominations have responded to the call in coming here today. But our continued division has led to many of the problems and we must therefore work earnestly to make reconciliation a priority so that even if we are unable to unite our institutions and structures we ourselves are united in love which is, after all, the central message of the gospels. We have to find ways of bringing people together - we have to redouble our efforts against sectarianism and bigotry - we must question our attitudes - attitudes that keep young people apart in a divided society - and ask is this the Christian way?

St Oliver Plunkett:

"I know there has been a Campaign of Prayer for Peace, with St. Oliver Plunkett as Patron which began here in Drogheda and has now spread throughout Ireland. He lived in much more difficult times than today, and yet even in those most difficult times he promoted peace and reconciliation and his work initiated a response from the Protestant community of the time. Likewise today, it is necessary for one community to go half way and stretch out the hand of friendship, which will invariably be reciprocated by the other community. So surely it is possible for us now, in a time much less fractious than three centuries ago, for both traditions to come together and live in harmony with each other, as we move into the third millennium after Christ’s birth"

Conclusion:

Let us pray now for peace, and for guidance, that we may truly become instruments of God’s peace. Let us give thanks for the many signs of hope and for the achievements of the last few months and years, culminating in the Good Friday Agreement. We must remember that these achievements owe their development not only to the hard work and intensive efforts of political leaders and successive governments, but also to the visionary efforts and sacrifices, the individual acts of heroism and leadership of so many ordinary people - so many men and women of courage and Christian witness who kept alive the hopes of peace and justice down through the long years. Let us give thanks for them.

Victims of violence:

And let us keep before us now and always, the victims of the conflict and their families - their numbers now swelled by yesterday’s atrocity. Individuals, families and whole communities have been devastated and traumatised in this dark period of our history. It is estimated that, apart from the over 3,500 people who have lost their lives, and the over 40,000 who have been injured, nearly 500,000 people in Northern Ireland have been directly touched by the violence of the last 30 years. We too have not been unaffected. There are wounds there that will never heal, but everything must be done that is humanly possible to help them. We must never forget their suffering and we must learn from what has happened.

But the best remembrance we can give them and the best legacy we can give to our own children is to work consciously and actively for peace and respond to the historic challenge that is now before us.