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Editorial:
Minority Report
Anna Rankin
Comment:
Racism in Ulster: Up-front and Ugly
Ken Newell
From
the Director: Naming Our Sin
David W Porter
Faith
in Ulster: Facing Up to Diversity
Stephen Skuce
Faith
and Practice
Walter Lewis
Interview
with Rose Ozo: Where the Heart Is
Anna Rankin
Craigavon:
Religious Liberty in the Shadow of Drumcree
Small Steps
Tim Foley
Embracing the Stranger
Richard Kerr
Review:
On Eagle's Wing
Ethel White
Review:
Conflict, Controversy and Co-operation
John W Morrow
Review:
The Subversive Manifesto
John Kyle
Review:
L is for Lifestyle
Claire Martin
Review:
It Will Not Be Taken Away From Her
Cary Gibson
Review:
Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance
Paul Rankin
Review:
Two Little Boys
John Gillespie
Review:
Son
David Smith
REVIEW:
Two Little Boys
by Edward O’Neill with Barry J Whyte
reviewed by John Gillespie
VICTIMS ARE a key concern, both North and South. We have had the Victims’ Commission, and the Corey report and the ongoing controversy about the Pat Finucane case. The families of the victims of the Omagh bombing continue to crusade for justice and recognition. A Truth and Reconciliation Forum has been mooted as a way forward. In this context, the publication of Two Little Boys is timely.
It deals with the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Written by Edward O’Neill jnr, son of one of the victims, who as a four-year-old was just coming out of a barber’s shop with his father Edward and seven-year-old brother Billy when the bomb went off killing his father and seriously wounding both of them. Eddie junior, his face deeply lacerated by shrapnel was thrown right across the road. Thirty-four were killed that day, and the toll would have been far greater had not Dublin been much quieter than usual, because of the bus strike.
The four chapters that describe the bombing in Dublin are the heart and strength of the book (the Monaghan bomb is scarcely mentioned). The devastation of a loving family is poignantly recounted – the immediate political context is sketched, the events of the day outlined, the immediate reaction of Dublin described, the government’s response noted and the media’s reports’ recalled. Most tellingly the chapter entitled ‘Eddie O’Neill’ searchingly portrays the effects of the bomb on each member of the O’Neill family from the loss of Eddie and Martha O’Neill’s unborn child to the tears of a son thirty years on, wanting his father to put his arms around him and hug him and tell him everything is ok.
The other chapters recount the attempts by the victim’s families to persuade the government to hold a public enquiry as a means of getting justice for their loved ones. It is a story of controversy, splits within the ‘Justice for the Forgotten’ campaign, rivalries and continuing disappointment. This account reveals what a difficult road they have had to tread.
That is why the authors not just provided an account but sought to alert the public to the injustices and cover-ups that have surrounded these atrocities. They are highly critical of a succession of Dublin governments, accusing the Cabinet committee in 1974 of engaging in a cover-up of the Gardai’s cover-up for its inaction, and of the RUC and the British government’s unwillingness to act helpfully in the situation. The current government’s reaction to the Barron report is, for them, further evidence that “the Irish government, once again, has let its citizens down”, especially in suggesting that the British government should conduct a public enquiry, rather than them.
The book has its limitations. Its brief historical introduction is inaccurate and superficial stating, for instance, that during the two hundred years (sic) between the Plantation of Ulster and the 1880s, the beginning of the Home rule crisis, Ulster was “docile and loyal”. And Edward Carson is called William Carson! They should have started with the events of the UWC strike in 1974. Nor is it analytical, presenting evidence, discussing it and drawing conclusions. That book about the bombings remains to be written. But it is a most effective cry from the heart – a cry of anguish, loss, frustration; a cry for justice, and an attack on the evasiveness and apathy they have encountered. Sadly, there is no mention of significant Christian help in this situation.
We are taken inside the mind of suffering victims and forced to ask crucial questions: How can justice be done? How can justice be done for so many atrocities over such a long time? How can victims be helped? And what can the politicians do? There are no easy answers.
PROFESSOR JOHN GILLESPIE is a member of ECONI and Head of School of Languages and Literature at the University of Ulster, Coleraine.
TWO LITTLE BOYS:
An account of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and their aftermath.
Edward O’Neill with Barry J Whyte
Published by Currach Press, 2004.
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