`It was hatred that brought us to this' (Part 2)

Frank Pancott's grey, hollow-eyed face belies his claim that he was once "Omagh's biggest rascal". As a driving instructor based around the corner, he was among the first on the scene. His mind is tormented by the stench of burning flesh; the "lovely long hair" of so many of the young girls, singed into their heads or left behind on the street; the blackened bodies from which limbs simply fell away as they were lifted; the small, young hand "sliced clean off". He is crushed by the memories: "In the end, you felt that everything you touched was dying in front of you."

When the water-mains burst, the street ran red as severed limbs were washed into the drains.

As he lies in bed now, confused images of life and death pitch him, sweating, into a twilight world where he is haunted by the first casualty he encountered - a woman horribly mutilated, who died in the few seconds it took him to run for help but whose name he never knew.

She "appears" to him at night now, urging him to open his eyes: "She says `I know you're afraid, but if you look around, you'll see me as I was before, not as you saw me . . ."' He refuses to look. Like so many others, he also refuses to seek counselling: "I have to deal with this in my own way."

The very stones of Omagh weep with such stories.

For so many of these tortured souls, the lonely journey on the road to disentangling life and death has barely begun. As the waves of grief crashed across the bereaved and physically injured, it was in the nature of things that the less seriously affected would suppress their suffering.

But to some it must seem there is a fate worse than death. A young member of the clergy forced to reflect on man's inhumanity after viewing row on row of pitiful remains has been severely traumatised and undergone a crisis of faith. A young RUC officer, who unwittingly helped to evacuate people into the path of the bomb, is also in crisis, racked by an onlooker's screamed accusation: "You sent those people in there".

Anger, blame and guilt are endemic as people blame themselves or others for not doing enough, for their powerlessness, or - significantly - for leaving the scene.

"I was cradling this woman and another one was dying beside me when this bastard - and I know him well - ran past me . . ." The paralysing guilt of those who ran is emerging as a major issue in counselling. But Pat Donaghy, one of those who stayed, will point no finger: "If I'd had my children with me, I can tell you I'd have run too".

Much of Omagh was also traumatised by proxy as Michael Duffy of the trauma centre, describes it. For long hours over that weekend the "missing" figure was as high as 78.

At the leisure centre, the image of distraught families streaming in, clutching photographs of missing children is seared into Conor McCrory's memory. Much later, out at the makeshift mortuary in the army barracks, Michael Duffy witnessed the crucifying aftermath.

"A policeman with the terrible job of getting final statements of identification was taking details from a woman. While they were talking, she began to tell him about her son - the boy she expected to find laid out in the next room - things like how it was he who had always refereed the football rows between her other two sons . . . And while she was talking and this big cop was writing, there was this loud drip, drip sound. When I looked up, I realised the drip-drip was his tears, dropping onto the page."

Police, firemen, military personnel, health workers on the frontline during those days have many similar stories to tell. Some managed to soldier on; some cracked but returned. In the local hospital, heroic teams of nursing and medical staff headed up by surgeon Dominick Pinto, implemented the well rehearsed major accident plan.

But such a plan assumes 30 or 40 injured at worst and a little time to prepare; not 240 - plus scores of distraught relatives and scores more seeking missing loved ones - pouring through in minutes, many with injuries rarely seen outside war zones. Nor do planners foresee a situation where rescuers and hospital staff will know the injured and dying; might even be related to them, or be their colleagues. Omagh saw it all.

Of the local RUC, 14 staff within Supt James Baxter's sub-division were affected by death or injury on August 15th. One constable lost his 21-year-old daughter, Deborah Ann Cartwright; another lost his sister, Esther Gibson. Supt Baxter's own family was not untouched; Samantha McFarland, a teenage volunteer at the Oxfam shop, was the girlfriend of his 18-year-old son.

The trauma centre is already working with 84 children and young people - some as young as two - as well as hundreds of adults. Though a staggering number in a small community, it may be just the start. "Our experience of Enniskillen was that the worst period was about four to eight months after the bombing," says David Bolton.

In other words, the darkest hours loom just ahead. While the overall mood in Omagh is still one of forbearance and gentleness, true to the grieving process three to four months on, many relationships forged in emotional white heat have become contentious, fractious and resentful.

The social services are feeling the lash of some people's anger, although in 30 years the North has never witnessed such intensive efforts to support victims as there have been in Omagh.

Individuals singled out for recognition are also the focus of festering resentment; such honours, some believe, should be awarded collectively. The fate of the bomb site may be another flash-point; some traders chafe at what they see as unreasonable demands regarding the area, which many of the bereaved want to see pedestrianised. (In fact, the site may end up in community ownership, according to community worker Geraldine Keys, with funding from the International Fund for Ireland.)

And as the effects of an existing recession are aggravated beyond measure by the bomb and its aftermath (12 bomb scares have been notified to police since August 15th, some entailing the evacuation of churches and streets), business people note bitterly that local banks like First Trust/AIB have been ordered to "batten down the hatches" rather than nurse them through the crisis. Several prominent businesses teeter on the brink of bankruptcy.

Above it all looms the shadow of Francie Mackey - Omagh's demon-scapegoat - the district councillor widely perceived to have political links with the "Real" IRA and to have been equivocal in his attitude to the bombing.

He is also vice-chairman of the Catholic parish council, a psychiatric nurse in the local hospital, and a man whose intelligence, articulacy, even temper and participation on the special peace and reconciliation committee had been broadly admired across all parties.

"Francie Mackey is like a hunted rat and that's not healthy," says Father Kevin Mullen, his parish priest, who has tried but failed to make contact with him. Father Mullen was the priest who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Rev David Armstrong in Limavady and has kept Michael Gallagher and many others afloat through the Omagh tragedy. He was also the priest who days after the bomb admitted that he had "not yet moved into forgiveness mode".

Has he now?

"I definitely would like to talk things through with Francie Mackey, and if I ever discover who planted the bomb I'd like to talk it through with them. Forgiveness is not a big issue with me just now. It's a foreign concept in this situation. I'd be more into seeing them have a change of heart."

He speaks for much of Omagh. There is little lust for revenge. They are weary of the past, of useless recrimination. Like soldiers after a terrible war, they have to believe that their suffering was not in vain.

"It was a watershed, wasn't it?" they ask outsiders, almost pleadingly.

Michael Grimes lost his wife, a daughter carrying twins and a grandchild, but even he refused to go along with Bob Geldof's curse, consigning the bombers to hell: "It was hatred that brought us to this," he reminded the Late Late audience gently. Challenged to damn the bombers too, Father Brian D'Arcy firmly reiterated the mood of his people: "Dammit, I want hope to come out of this suffering."

And like snowdrops through snow, there are stirrings of hope for those who look. Grace Lyttle grows animated about the "extra effort" being made by students in "other uniforms" to stop and chat: "It has really brought us closer." Cross-community activity and co-operation were never more meaningful or intensive.

David Bolton has noted a rush of volunteers to join counselling groups such as Cruse and the Samaritans. The number of people signing up for first-aid classes has also jumped markedly - doubtless a reflection of the terrible sense of "powerlessness" reported by many witnesses.

Above all, a significant outcome of the new dispensation is that official and unofficial Northern Ireland is at last acknowledging its victims and learning to care for them. The main difference between Omagh and Enniskillen is context, says David Bolton.

"We didn't know a lot about trauma, there was a lot of ongoing violence and people felt that to ask for help was admitting defeat. A couple of recent reports underline the fact that as a community and society, we have not addressed the needs of victims adequately throughout the Troubles. Up to now, we have buried the issue of victims. To go to a funeral was political; not to go to a funeral was political. The whole issue was subliminally a political issue. People were afraid to ask for help; agencies were afraid explicitly to offer help."

The Bridge Centre - Omagh's new trauma centre named after The Bridge of Hope, the poem written by 12-year-old Sean McLoughlin, one of the three Buncrana boys killed in Omagh - is a harbinger of better times. With its brass nameplate in English, Irish and Spanish, the easy offers of coffee and time, the children's framed paintings, drawings and letters - "Don't be fritened, I will pray for you," reads one from an English 10-year-old - it aims to be a "sympathetic oasis" for the town and perhaps the genesis for similar developments across the region.

In the RUC station, Supt James Baxter admits wryly that before the bomb his wife used to complain about his lack of emotion. Recently at a rugby match involving his son, he was amazed to find tears trickling down his face after seeing a boy knocked accidentally unconscious. Has the bomb changed him?

"Oh yes, it has, it has," he says reflectively. "I feel I'm much more compassionate in my dealings with people and much more concerned for the welfare of those I come in contact with. I suppose something like this brings home to you the frailty of life . . ."