1 day Ago
On August 15, 1998, the Real IRA visited a day of wanton carnage on the town of Omagh when a 500-pound bomb explosion took the lives of 29 people. Among the dead were unborn twins, babies, children and young people. Sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and grandparents were killed.
Yesterday, their names were read out as an inquiry into their deaths opened in Tyrone. The sorrow of the worst single atrocity of the Troubles lives on in the hearts of loved ones left behind. They were also left bereft of answers as to what exactly happened.
This inquiry will examine whether UK authorities could reasonably have prevented the bombing. Tánaiste Simon Harris has said the Irish Government will “not be found wanting” in its co-operation with the inquiry. Living in the dark for so long unnecessarily, not knowing the full facts, may have compounded a terrible wrong.
Inquiry chairman Alan Turnbull took pains to thank those who had chosen to engage with the inquiry. He spoke of the “distressing and difficult experience” of those who had volunteered to take part in the process. Triggering and traumatic though it might be, Mr Turnbull hoped the “devastating and lasting impact of terrible random violence” would be understood by all.
Victims must be “centre stage”, he said. No one was convicted for the murders in the criminal courts, but Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, who died in 2021, was found responsible in a 2009 civil case. Colm Murphy, who died in 2023, was convicted of being involved in the plot, but was cleared in a retrial.
‘Daddy, I love you very much’. Those were the last words she spoke to me Mr Turnbull said he hoped those who might have condoned the actions of the bombers would learn “the devastating consequences” for the innocent victims. Time will be taken to go through the evidence, but the human trauma, the personal stories, must be heard and acknowledged.
Finding out who might have been responsible is key to the judicial process. But in so far as any healing process is possible, it is critical that we understand what victims went through. Eleven years before the Omagh bombing, the IRA detonated a bomb on November 8, 1987, in Enniskillen.
The late Gordon Wilson was with his daughter Marie (20) when he lost her to the blast. He recalled their last moments, saying: “I said, ‘Are you all right?’, and she said, ‘Yes’, but she was shouting in between. Three of four times I asked her, and she always said yes, she was all right.
When I asked her the fifth time, ‘Are you all right, Marie?’, she said, ‘Daddy, I love you very much’. Those were the last words she spoke to me.” Mr Wilson devoted himself to campaigning for peace until his death in 1995.
Such bombings must be consigned to the past, but those who suffered must remain in our thoughts. In the absence of accountability, people at least deserve to know the facts. As 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes said: “Hell is truth seen too late.
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