‘WHENEVER SOMEONE tells me that somebody from Omagh is coming to the play today, I feel incredibly nervous. It’s a fiction based on very, very real events and the thought of a victim or their family members seeing something that’s misrepresenting them in any way is a horrifying, terrifying thought. Thankfully, that’s not happened, people seem to have connected with it.”
When Ross Dungan wrote Minute After Midday, his memory play about the Omagh bombing, the Dubliner never foresaw it being performed two years later at the Edinburgh Fringe, the world's largest arts festival. The suggestion that he might be exploiting grief is something the young playwright "genuinely worries about on a daily basis. The emotions it stirs are a big responsibility and very difficult to ignore because it's incredibly raw for some people still. That's something I've tried to keep in mind at all times."
Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed by a car bomb in the town’s Market Street by the Real IRA on August 15th, 1998. Not since Pete Travis directed Paul Greengrass and Guy Hibbert’s 2004 television film, Omagh, have the events been dramatised. A controversial film for some, credited as both stimulating and obstructing justice, Omagh strongly criticised the RUC and won respect for its recreation of the details of that day and its engagement with the victims throughout the process, the Omagh Support Group in particular.
Unlike Greengrass, who was approached to make the film by the victims' families, Dungan's three, interlinked monologues originated with his characters, each recognisable victims of the Troubles but fictional all the same. "They were the first thing I thought about, then once they were established, I thought it would be more effective if it was a real event as opposed to an imaginary one," he reveals. Minute After Middaydoesn't concern itself with the investigation or the broader implications of the bombing for the peace process, merely the immediate horror and personal aftermath.
Amid various dramatic licences, not least the shifting of the bomb’s timing to noon, the most striking is the testimony of Conor, the car’s driver. No-one has been convicted in a criminal court of the atrocity. Duggan has no personal connection to Omagh and maintains that any wish- fulfilment to see the bombers judged was unconscious on his part.
Played by Jude Greer with remorse but self-justification, and speaking as if incarcerated, Conor’s account, Duggan maintains, “Is a story I wanted to hear, what that person had to say. I didn’t believe the audience would connect with him or it would have resonated as much if it was someone who had gotten away with it. He’s been thinking about nothing else for the last three years, sitting and stewing. There’s nothing victorious in his being caught.”
If there’s any correspondence with real individuals, it comes in the form of Mari (played by Rachel Parker), whose husband Brian died saving the life of a young girl (Claire Hughes). She expresses sympathy for the perpetrators in an echo of peace campaigner Gordon Wilson, who was injured and his daughter Marie killed in the 1987 Enniskillen Remembrance Day attack. “An unbelievable thing to do, something I couldn’t fathom at all,” Dungan reflects. “That level of forgiveness, taking a moment to stop and analyse things in an effort to end the cyclical nature of the violence.” The murder of PC Ronan Kerr in April, with a car bomb planted outside his house in Omagh, brought the events of 13 years ago sharply back into focus. Dungan says, “Suddenly, it felt a lot less like something in the past, something locked away.
“It’s strange to me that there’s not been more dramatic work about Omagh. In a similar way to how the families have been ignored, there’s been this sense of trying to sweep it under the carpet and move on. But the play isn’t an attempt to re-examine everything that happened, it’s just a story I wanted to tell.”
He relates the reaction of Parker’s friends from Omagh who’ve seen the film. “More than anything, it made them remember for a second. They received it very well and hopefully it’s cathartic because I’d hate to be unthinkingly putting people through it all again.”
Minute After Middayhad a short preview run in Dublin last month and Duggan says talks are under way to bring it back to Ireland.
