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Declassified files a sober reminder of violence the North’s peace deal failed to stop

Details of negotiations around Drumcree Orange parade in 1998 and response of emergency services to Omagh bombing in newly-released files

Spanish tourist Gonzalo Cavedo standing with a child on his shoulders beside the car carrying the bomb that exploded in Omagh on August 15th 1998. Mr Cavedo and the child survived but the photographer was killed. Photograph: RUC/PA

Marie Coleman in Belfast
Thu Dec 29 2022 - 04:30

With plans under way to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement next year, the files released by Northern Ireland’s public record office offer a sobering perspective on how the relief and euphoria of April 1998 dissipated within months as serious violence engulfed the North in July and August 1998.

Confrontations were expected for the fourth consecutive year around the annual Drumcree Orange parade near Portadown in Co Armagh. In the three previous years, 1995 to 1997 inclusive, the order had been permitted to return down the predominantly nationalist Garvaghy Road, following a service marking the Battle of the Somme held at the Church of Ireland parish church in Drumcree, held annually on the first Sunday in July.

The situation would be different in 1998. New legislation – the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act – passed by the Westminster parliament in February 1998 established a statutory parades commission to adjudicate on contested marches and parades. The commission decided to prohibit the Orange Order’s return along the Garvaghy Road.

Between July 4th and 12th, 1998, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) recorded 598 attacks on security forces, which injured 70 police officers. The police responded firing 751 plastic bullets, and arrested 254 people. When the violence subsided 2,237 petrol bombs were recovered.

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Related tensions had spread to the Lower Ormeau Road area of south Belfast where nationalists opposed the route of the Ballynafeigh Orange lodge’s annual parade (scheduled for Monday, July 13th on account of July 12th falling on a Sunday in 1998) down the predominantly nationalist part of the road.

On the day of the Drumcree church service (Sunday, July 5th) the security force operation around Drumcree was considered to have “gone well”, and the atmosphere was quiet and good humoured. Over the course of the following few days, between July 6th and 9th, the situation remained “generally quiet”, despite sporadic violence largely in loyalist and Protestant areas around the north. This changed on the night of July 9th-10th, which saw “the worst violence of the standoff to date” at Drumcree itself, with similar levels of violence reported on the following night.

Officials reported very different responses from the two sides in meetings with the Northern minister Adam Ingram at the start of the week. While residents’ group leader Brendan McKenna (MacCionnaith) was “on his best behaviour” and taoiseach Bertie Ahern “was understood to be encouraging him to keep a low profile”. By contrast, “the Portadown Orangemen ... were in bitter and hostile mood, and had shown no signs of flexibility”.

British Soldiers and RUC look on as Orangemen gather at Drumcree Church in Portadown in 1998. Photograph: Joe St Leger

The disorder halted abruptly early on Sunday, July 12th when news broke of the tragic deaths of the three Catholic Quinn brothers (Jason, Mark and Richard) following a firebomb attack on their home at Ballymoney in Co Antrim.

News of the tragedy spurred “intense activity aimed at resolving the standoff”. First minister David Trimble’s called on the Drumcree Orangemen to end their protest. A reciprocal gesture from the Lower Ormeau Concern Community, brokered by Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey, resulted in the promise of a “dignified and non-confrontational” response to the planned Orange march down the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast on the following day.

The respite that followed the cessation of disorder at Drumcree on July 12th was shattered within five weeks by the Real IRA’s detonation of a bomb in Omagh town centre at 3.10pm on Saturday, August 15th. Newly-released files provide a detailed account of the medical and emergency service response to the bombing.

Officials from the directorate of health were “at a loss to understand the persistent refusal” of Tyrone County Hospital “to accept outside help given the overwhelming numbers of patients” admitted in the immediate aftermath of bombing.

The Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast “had a mobile surgical team available for despatch on request”, while Belfast City Hospital “had cleared 4 intensive care unit beds for casualty reception”, yet at 8.45pm on the evening of the explosion a final decision was taken “that no medical resources were required from any other source for the [Tyrone County] hospital”. A similar offer of assistance made at 4.30pm, less than 90 minutes after the bomb was detonated, from Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry to send a mobile despatch team was also turned down.

The result was that services which had been mobilised were not used as effectively as they might have been and treatment was delayed: “Patients were still being stabilised for transfer late in the evening and fully-equipped teams from the Royal, Altnagelvin and Craigavon could have been on site in Omagh much earlier.”

The ability of the hospital and ambulance services to co-ordinate their responses was hampered further by poor telecommunications problems: “despite BT’s [British Telecom] major investment the landlines and terrestrial telephone exchanges were unable to cope”.

In Omagh itself some of this was explained by damage caused to lines by the explosion but this explanation did not account for the situation in Enniskillen, where the BT exchange “was unable to receive calls for even longer” than the Omagh centre. By contrast, mobile telephone communications, though much less well developed at that time, worked more effectively.

Sixteen of the most severely injured – suffering from serious limb, facial and eye injuries – were transferred by army helicopters to Altnagelvin, but the inadequate notice of their arrival and inability to communicate while airborne meant that, rather than provide continuity of treatment, doctors there had to treat the casualties as fresh admissions and they had to be “retriaged from scratch”.

In other regards, communications in Altnagelvin were better. In contrast to Omagh, Altnagelvin’s emergency department had established a direct link to ambulance control. The hospital was commended further for its initiative in “rather cleverly” obtaining “additional lights from the Fire Service which allowed the helicopters to continue function after darkness”. This was in contrast to the RVH, where helicopters had to be diverted to Musgrave Park after 8.15pm because of fading daylight, although this appears to have been resolved by clearing car-park space for a makeshift helipad.

The crucial role of the nursing and medical personnel – especially consultant Kanwar Panesar’s team at Altnagelvin – and the ambulance service was praised. On the “brighter side” of the response health officials were “impressed” by the number of places that offered help, including services from Sligo and Navan in the Republic.

By Monday, August 17th, 90 adults and 17 children remained in various hospitals across the North. Twenty-nine people and two unborn children died in the bombing, which was the biggest loss of civilian life in a single incident in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Prof Marie Coleman is professor of 20th-century Irish history and disciplinary lead for history at Queen’s University Belfast

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