A Hope for Peace in Ireland.

• Author: Clarity, James F.

FOR A TEENAGE GIRL BLINDED IN A BOMB BLAST, NORTHERN IRELAND'S CENTURIES-OLD CONFLICT CAN'T END TOO SOON

Claire Gallagher still has what she calls "bad days." They come most often on Saturday, she says, the day of a terrible bomb blast in Omagh, Northern Ireland, that left her blind.

Much good has happened in the 17 months since then, she is quick to point out. Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland have stopped their centuries of warring, and in December, began' forming a government together. And next month, with luck, the longtime enemies will begin to disarm.

Still, for Gallagher, a 16-year-old pianist, music student, and one of five children, that afternoon in August 1998 remains as vivid as ever. She had gone into town to shop, like many other Catholic teens looking to buy new school uniforms for the coming term. By mid-afternoon, hundreds of people had crowded into the town square when suddenly a car bomb exploded, collapsing buildings and covering the street in smoke, rubble, and severed human limbs. Not even car alarms set off by the explosion could smother the awful sound of victims' screams and children crying out for their parents. In all, 29 people were killed, including six teenagers, and hundreds were injured, making it the deadliest guerrilla action in a war that had killed more than 3,500 people in the last 30 years.

A LIFE CHANGED

Gallagher, struck in the face by flying metal, was rushed to nearby County Tyrone Hospital, where, ironically, her mother, an X-ray technician, had already been summoned to treat the injured. Flown by helicopter to Belfast, she underwent three operations on her damaged right eye, but it was eventually removed. A month later, after six more hours of surgery on her left eye, she learned she would never see again. The bomb set by an extremist Catholic faction opposed to the peace talks then going on, "changed everything," Gallagher says.

"I used to be very independent, and I was always on the go," she told an interviewer recently. "Now I depend on people's help for so many things. Everybody--my friends, my family, even my younger sister Karen, who is only 6--bends over backwards to help me."

GRATEFUL, NOT BITTER

Although no one was ever arrested for the blast, Protestants and Catholics united in angrily condemning it. Gallagher, for her part, expresses no bitterness, only thanks that her music skills remained intact. Still a pianist, who now learns new material by ear, she hopes to become a...