Omagh 10 years on - Atrocity made peace inevitable

WE OWE the Real IRA bombers who murdered 31 people in the Tyrone market town of Omagh 10 years ago today a debt of sorts.

By their barbarism they made it impossible for terrorists to continue their campaigns of bombing, indiscriminate killing and intimidation.

Their broad-daylight, weekend-family-time atrocity finally forced constitutional politicians of all sides to work together; to persist despite their deepest instincts. They had to make the recently signed Good Friday peace deal work by confronting enmities almost genetic in their depth, the very enmities that fuelled a litany of tragedies like Omagh.