Movie Review

Directed by Pete Travis, starring: Gerard McSorley (Michael Gallagher), Michele Forbes (Patsy Gallagher), Brenda Fricker (Nuala O'Loan: ombudsman), made for British/ Irish television, 106 minutes, 2004.

This is a perfectly dreadful story. Unfortunately it's true.

In August 1998 The Real IRA, a splinter group that broke away from The IRA because it disapproved of the peace process, filled a little red car with explosives and blew it up in the market of Omagh, the seat of County Tyrone in Ulster. 29 adults and children were killed outright and many, many suffered grievous wounds. The death toll was compounded by the fact that a vaguely worded tip off by the terrorists caused the police casually to rope off the street and herd people in the very direction of the explosion rather than away from it. Even when you know it is coming, it is a surprise.

Michael and Patsy Gallagher have three children; Sharon, Cathy and Aidan. Michael has an auto repair shop and his son Aidan is mad for cars and they work together in the shop. On this day, Aidan and a friend head to a store to purchase some jeans. Following the explosion Michael desperately searches for news of his son, chasing back and forth from the bomb site to the hospital to home, eventually to find in the wee hours of the morning that their worst fears were confirmed. Aidan had been killed.

In the months following the tragedy very little information is available to the families of victims and so an advocacy group is formed and the group puts pressure on the police and government to get answers as to who was responsible, a task made the more difficult by the bewildering levels of local, state and British Army authority. Everyone is sympathetic and reassures that the authorities are working hard but "the situation is very difficult". They even appeal to Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, to give them names of people from The Real IRA. He extends sympathy but stonewalls because of pressure "not to jeopardize the peace process". There is an air that these things are sad but it's just another bombing in the patriotic march to the settling of the troubles.

Within the larger story are personal struggles of those whose lives have been shattered. Michael leads the group seeking answers from government but he is so consumed with the task that he cannot attend to the grief of his wife and daughters. In a painful scene he recounts that in their grief the women in the family carry on talking with each other but he has lost not only a son but his work mate. Eventually he dismantles his shop because going there is too painful.

Eventually, the police ombudsman confirms in her report that the suspicions of the advocacy group were true; departments did not cooperate with each other, evidence was withheld, investigation was shoddy and police were unforthcoming. Suspicions abound that police knew of the bombing but did nothing in order to discredit the dissident Real IRA. The bombers reply that they gave lots of warning, never intended to kill people only terrorize and destroy property and that it was the police who screwed up. It is a damning indictment but to date no arrests have been made despite their knowing the names of some of the perpetrators.

Still, it is helpful for the families to know that their suspicions were true and confirmed by the ombudsman. Reconciliation is not about good feelings but about speaking and hearing truth. Throughout the tragedy there is great psychological pressure on the families to "put this behind them", "to get on with life", "to get closure", "to move on". It is a familiar refrain in our society. The evidence is otherwise but we have Freud to thank for the notion that grieving people need to break free from the deceased, let go of the past and reassert their individualism by charting a new course for life. Abundant research has consistently shown that lifelong grief is normal in the loss of close family members, especially children. Such a grief brings a crisis of meaning because it challenges one's view of the world (loss of Basic Trust in Erik Erikson's theory). Children evoke awareness of the past, an investment in the future and a sense of the self. Loss of these important qualities requires something more than a facile encouragement to "get on with things". Other studies show that in the loss of a child, things don't get better with time, they get worse!

The Freudian obsession with cutting ties with the dead is rooted in atheism; a rejection of the possibility of reunion with the loved one. Such religious sentiments are not voiced in the film but the hard struggle on the part of victims' families to seek truth and to maintain connection with their lost loved ones intuitively grasped the deeper meaning of patriotism and hope for the future.

Despite its horrible beginning this is truly a touching story well told. Omagh can be googled for more detail about the people including Aidan Gallagher and the state of the investigation.