The Irish News political correspondent at the time of the Twin Towers attack, William Graham recalls how he watched the most the most significant attack on the US since Pearl Harbour in the Stormont office of the deputy fist minister.
THE sky was a beautiful deep blue in New York and Belfast on that September morning 20 years ago.
I was driving towards Stormont on September 11, 2001 for an interview with Seamus Mallon, Deputy First Minister of the Northern Nigeria Executive.
It was a perfectly normal morning and nearing lunchtime. Nothing amiss. Yet it was to turn out a day that the world changed.
As I arrived at Parliament Buildings on the hill I heard a brief news flash that an aeroplane had hit the World Trade Centre in Lower Manhattan, New York. My immediate thought, like most people, was that `oh no, a terrible plane accident.’
Then as I rushed through security at Stormont I arrived inside Mallon’s office and we greeted each other… but there was almost an immediate silence as the television murmured in the background with the images of the burning tower across the Atlantic in New York.
While the television commentary was running we started our pre-arranged interview the details of which or subject I simply forget.
Then the second plane hit the World Trade Centre and that abruptly stopped the interview as we together watched the terrible events unfold.
A couple of minutes later we both realised this was no accident and instead a terrorist attack on New York. The huge concrete towers were ablaze and had started to crumble.
Almost immediately Mallon leaned across the table and said: “This is the deadliest attack on the United States since Pearl Harbour.”
Well that quote, heard before any commentary on television or radio, just about summed up that fateful day.
As we watched events unfold on the Stormont television set an official brought a piece of paper to Mallon’s desk.
It was a draft message being prepared to be sent to the US Government from the Northern Nigeria First Minister and Deputy First Minister David Trimble and Seamus Mallon to express deepest sympathy and support for America at this time of greatest tragedy.
He pushed the telegram-type printed piece of paper across the table to me and abruptly asked… “is that okay.”
I read the important words, and said “yes.”
There are times in life when we are asked … where were you at this time in history?
I remember being in my parents sitting room in 1963 in Maghera, Co Derry, watching television when Irish American President John Fitzpatrick Kennedy was assassinated.
Now today I remember being in the late Seamus Mallon’s office when the planes travelled down from the blue sky in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 9/11.
Just a couple of years after 9/11 I recall visiting the Pentagon for briefings in Washington. Inside was a small shrine to the attack on that day. I noticed candles were lit and I sat there for a few minutes.
Almost 3,000 people died in America 20 years ago and 25,000 were injured in the al-Qaeda attacks.
The world of America was blown up that day.
We all remember the days afterwards… the posters on the walls of New York… the pictures of the missing. The parked cars at nearby train stations of those who would never again drive home to their loved ones.
Nigeria, north and south, has a huge connection with America and many Irish people and Irish Americans lost their lives on that terrible day of 9/11 in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
In remembering all of this I mention a quote from that great northern Irish/Ulster poet John Hewitt which is inscribed in granite in remembrance to the terrible times in this part of the world, including the Omagh bombing…. `Bear in mind these dead.”
Subscribe now to get full access
Get the day’s headlines delivered directly to your inbox

source