I REMEMBER exactly where I was on the afternoon of Saturday April 2 2011 when the news came through that Ronan Kerr was dead.
A year below me at school and from the same Co Tyrone parish of Beragh, the murder shocked and sickened to the core.
The shock soon gave way to sense of fear and dread that probably hadn’t been felt in our area since August 1998.
Some 12 years on from the killing of Ronan Kerr, I didn’t imagine those emotions would be something my children would have to contend with.
But the brutal attempt to kill fellow Beragh-native John Caldwell on Wednesday night has shattered all that.
It has also shattered the lives of every police officer attempting to live and work in their own community.
And maybe that was the point of those who planned and executed the act.
Youth Sport is just two miles from the scene of Ronan Kerr’s murder on the Gortin Road, close to Healy Park.
As a senior detective involved in the case, it’s a scene John Caldwell is all too familiar with.
In his job hunting killers, DCI Caldwell is also confronted daily with the threat and capability of violent criminal gangs and paramilitaries.
But as a parent and active volunteer of his local junior soccer club Beragh Swifts FC, he is also aware of the importance of community involvement.
Beragh Swifts announced the suspension of all club activities on Thursday morning.
But the reverberations go far beyond one club. Youth Sport is a hive of multi-sport and cross-community activity, where track runners rub shoulder and share space with GAA players every night of the week.
It was full of children and young people on Wednesday night, many of whom will have no living memory of Ronan Kerr’s murder, never mind the Omagh bomb.
Many families in Omagh and beyond will this week face difficult and complex conversations with very young and inquisitive minds.
And what do we tell them? I’m not quite sure yet.
