Travelling on the main road to Creeslough, one passes through The Gap. A winding, remote road hewn between the peaks of Stragraddy and Crockmore, a grand portal of rock and bog into another world.
For the many in the past lucky enough to visit, this was a different world of carefree holidays or daytrips to one of the island’s more stunning corners. Now, it is a different world for those who call Creeslough home, too.
The reminders of last month’s explosion that killed 10 people during a chance visit to the village’s only shop are instant. Not that anyone needs reminding. This tragedy will not be forgotten in our lifetimes, much less within weeks.
The road blocks are still up. Diversions on circuitous routes around thinning, hedge-lined country roads remain in place. It is causing its own difficulties for a return to anything resembling normality.
These are not roads made for buses or delivery trucks. But the inconvenience is just that. It is nothing to the raw pain perhaps only now taking full shape as this small community of a few hundred people emerge from last month’s disaster.
It is a different world for Fr John Joe Duffy, the parish priest whose remarkable strength in speaking for Creeslough in the days after the explosion, amid wake after wake, funeral after funeral, is starting to show its human limitations.
‘I almost can’t believe it happened… I almost can’t believe it can happen in a shop.. What is the biggest risk that could happen in a shop? Half a dozen eggs might fall over...’
In his home, opposite St Michael’s Church and 650 metres down the road from the scene of the blast at a small complex of apartments, a supermarket and a filling station, Fr Duffy struggles sometimes now for words.
He trails off, flits between memories, imagining what happened, then questioning the memories he has of the day.
‘Hard to grasp’
“I was there, I saw it,” he says. “Was I there? Was I not there? The reality is so hard to grasp for us all.
“I almost can’t believe it happened… I almost can’t believe it can happen in a shop.. What is the biggest risk that could happen in a shop? Half a dozen eggs might fall over... a bottle could fall and be broken.
“I see the faces behind the counter... that someone is serving me behind the counter.
“That’s me standing on this side of the counter, that’s another... I often met them in the shop, people... where I met a lot of those people... it was one of the places.”
Fr Duffy has urged villagers and the many who came from elsewhere to help the rescue effort to take the counselling offered by the Health Service Executive. Private counsellors, too, countrywide have given sessions free of charge.
The priest has had eight sessions himself so far, and is booked in for more. It has helped.
“Your sleeping pattern can be grand for a while from the exhaustion. Then you start reliving it later.. it’s all sorts of emotions, it can disturb, unusual dreams, not directly about the situation, whatever..”
There are “difficult days and okay days”, he says, before opening up about the death of his own father while he was at college, the “anger and the grief”. All of this has been raked up again.
Ten rosary beads
Every morning, more and more cards, letters and books of condolences arrive at his home.
“One from Douglas Community School in Cork this morning, another from Clare County Council. That’s just two of thousands.” Among them is a white paper bag containing ten rosary beads for the families of the dead. Pope Francis sent them from Rome.
Walking through the village, Fr Duffy feels acutely the “palpable sense of sadness”. The talk is of the bereaved and how the injured are doing.
“How are the families? The injured?” Again he pauses, searching for words.
“If I were to say [anything] to you I would be giving you an incorrect answer. Ah, come here... How could anyone? It changes from moment to moment, how people are.
“We are very much in the very early days. The reality of it is just beginning to dawn. They’re left with empty spaces within their homes and families. One minute you could be coping, the next it is hard to cope.
“I think we are all are finding that. Even talking now… it is triggering the emotions, it is bringing you back into it, reliving every moment of it. If I’m reliving it, reliving it in my head… it must be... I can’t imagine what it must be like for the families. To say I can would be an injustice.”
Flickers of hope
In the unfathomable depths of despair, there are flickers of something resembling hope and a future.
Last Sunday, the local under-13 GAA team, St Michael’s, won the county cup after an emotional win over Naomh Conaill from Glenties. Lifting the trophy, captain Mark Anthony McGuinness – son of former Donegal manager Jim McGuinness who now lives in Creeslough – declared: “This is for the community.”
Travelling home in their red and black strips, the team stopped at the cordon sealing off the blast site. One by one, they lined up and observed a minute’s silence.
“It was emotional for them, too, but it was a wee lift for the village,” says Bernadette McFadden, a veteran community activist in Creeslough.
Later that evening, a Halloween disco was held in Rose’s Bar for youngsters.
“It was a bit strange, but the general feeling of people was that it would be nice for them, to have some sense of normality for the children.
“It has all had an impact on them. They have lost school friends.”
Along with her husband Ben, who died in April, Bernadette has been a stalwart of the Creeslough Community Association. Before the explosion, its chief concerns were the St Patrick’s Day celebrations and the Christmas lights.
Now it is charged with trying to keep a community together.
‘Still not sleeping’
“The community itself is a victim as well,” says Bernadette.
“People are still not sleeping at night, even those that had no one involved. They are saying, ‘I can’t get it out of my mind, I keep thinking of families.’
For the past few weeks, big retailers such as Dunnes, Centra, Asda and Sainsburys have donated groceries, distributed from a cargo container beside the daycare centre
“On the other hand, people are saying we have to get our village built up again, we’ll be stronger than ever. There has always been a great community spirit.”
A milestone is the reopening of a shop. For the past few weeks, big retailers such as Dunnes, Centra, Asda and Sainsburys have donated groceries, distributed from a cargo container beside the daycare centre. In turn, customers make a donation to help with restocking.
Annette and Danny Martin Lafferty, who run the small supermarket where the explosion happened, said they hope to have a new store opened in the village “in the next few weeks”.
The Government has agreed a scheme of business supports to help traders recoup losses and get restarted.
There is also the matter of deciding how to spend around €2 million raised for the community. One of the fundraising organisers, the Irish Red Cross, which has received €1.45 million in donations, held a meeting with around 60 villagers during the week.
Interim secretary General Liam O’Dwyer said only around €60,000 has been distributed so far to help with the “immediate needs” of those seeking emergency accommodation, loss of earnings and day-to-day costs.
“There are no ideas so far on how to spend the money, people are only getting their heads around it,” he said.
“People are very respectful that the victims and families are the priority at the moment.”
A further meeting is to be held before the end of the month.
Preserving the scene
While some businesses have reopened – the pub, cafes and hairdressers – many believe the reopening of the N56 road, where the cordon has divided the village in half, will signal a step towards some new normality.
Last week, the Garda secured a High Court order extending its preservation of the scene of the blast until November 27th. It sought the order to “preserve, search for and collect evidence”, it said.
Sources within Donegal County Council said they were surprised at the length of the extension requested.
The Garda would not put forward a spokesman. In a statement, it said “more than 500 lines of enquiry have been actioned” and Garda National Technical Bureau crime scene managers remain at the scene, along with investigators from DNV, a global company specialising in energy systems.
Garda sources believe the Creeslough investigation is the first time the force has ever gone to the High Court seeking permission for a scene to be preserved for further examination.
One source said the site was being treated as “a crime scene” but the force had “no crime in mind or suspect in mind” and is looking for evidence to determine what caused the explosion, including evidence that would determine if a crime had been committed.
‘What I’m told by psychologists with experience of major disasters like Hillsborough or tragedies in Northern Ireland, is that something will be needed around three months on from now’
Ten inquests will take place and coroners were “entitled to best evidence”, as were the families of the deceased, the source added.
Among more than 260 people who have made statements to gardaí is local GP Dr Paul Stewart, who believes some sort of group counselling sessions will be needed in the village in the months ahead.
‘A long haul’
“What I’m told by psychologists with experience of major disasters like Hillsborough or tragedies in Northern Ireland, is that something will be needed around three months on from now,” he says.
“We are looking at some group-therapy-type options after Christmas. That makes sense to me. It is the winter and after Christmas it will really come home to them what has happened.
“This is going to be a long haul putting people back together. In my experience that doesn’t take months, it takes years.”
While Dr Stewart he is worried about people emotionally “taking a dive” over the coming months, he says there is a need, too, to focus on those from outside Creeslough who came to help.
“There are also people who are in a vulnerable psychological situation around the country, who may feel this is the last straw for them. It is a national issue, even,” he says.
A walk-in counselling service in Creeslough has seen up to 30 people per week, while an in-house service at Dr Stewart’s practice is taking up to seven people per day.
“For the first week it was pretty strange, people were nearly in denial, even the bereaved. It is such an unreal situation. People are in a local shop and all of sudden they are dead, basically.
“That is very hard to come to terms with for people, that sense of unreality, as someone described it like something from a disaster movie. But now it is beginning to sink in.”
Month’s mind Masses
While he cannot fault the national response, he does “wonder what it will be like in six months when Creeslough is a memory or whatever” for others.
Liam Ward, director of services for Donegal County Council, says eight of the apartments at the service station complex were occupied, a mix of single occupants and families.
They have been rehoused temporarily to “meet their immediate needs”, some as far away as Letterkenny, but he accepts it will be a challenge finding them suitable accommodation over the longer term.
This weekend, Fr Duffy is preparing individual month’s mind Masses for the dead. Some will take place next week, others at later dates to allow for relatives to travel from overseas.
Appealing for “privacy and space” for the families, he says: “The community needs that to cope with the grieving process.”
“We are a rural area that was once very much known for the cutting of the corn in Creeslough. We were thrown into this. It is very hard on people, burying your loved ones. We need that space now.
“It is quieter here now, much quieter. We are just stepping out on that journey, small steps, trying to continue as best we can.”
