Humanity prevailed over inhumanity in a Co Tyrone arts centre this week during the first three days of evidence in the Omagh bombing inquiry.
The “horror of the Troubles” is a worn phrase but here it was at its most bare – captured in detailed, distressing form.
The Real IRA bombing on August 15th, 1998, killed 29 people, aged 20 months to 66 years and two late-term unborn twin girls who were to be called Eimear and Evelyn. It maimed and injured some 200 more.
This week we heard of a grandfather and a young woman, united in grief, wondering why, like Lazarus, their loved ones couldn’t be brought back to life.
We saw the ultrasound picture of Avril Monaghan’s unborn twin daughters and heard how three generations of that family were killed in the explosion.
We heard too how faith, family and community provided some solace to the bereaved and the wounded.
Yet, somehow, amid the torment, the love and the indomitability of the human spirit shone through in the Strule Arts Centre where the inquiry is being held.
There have been many inquiries into killings during the Troubles but this seemed unique in that it went above and beyond the legalistic, evidential and judicial, permitting those still suffering to express their deepest feelings about their loved ones.
Every piece of testimony was heart-rending, containing elemental truths about love and loss. Perhaps the inquiry will provide some catharsis for the Omagh families and maybe other families too. In Omagh this week it was as if the bereaved were speaking for the bereaved and victims of the entire Troubles.
The ultimate purpose of the inquiry is to determine if the attack could have been averted but chiefly these early weeks of the inquiry are designed “to commemorate those who were killed”.
And that is being done with great sensitivity in this inquiry chaired by Alan Turnbull, who spoke about the “compassion and dignity” of the bereaved.
“Those beyond Omagh who listen and watch will, as I was, be shocked at the level of grief imposed on ordinary decent members of society doing nothing other than living their daily lives,” he said.
He added that the inquiry would “have an important value in informing and educating others as to the real effect of terrorist violence”.
The inquiry opened on Tuesday to hear of the deaths of the two Spanish victims of the bombing, of youth leader Rocio Abad Ramos (23) and one of her charges, 12-year-old Fernando Blasco Baselga, both from Madrid, spending time in Buncrana in Co Donegal on an exchange programme.
Fernando, one of seven siblings, was a “good, happy and generous child” who, deeply religious, “got along with everyone”, solicitor Michael Donaghy said in a statement from the Blasco Baselga family.
Paloma Abad Ramos told how her sister Rocio had visited Buncrana for five consecutive summers to learn English and “loved [the] Irish and the culture and the country”.
Paloma recalled that the coffins of Rocio and Fernando were flown back to Madrid in a Spanish military plane and how “at a certain moment I stood up because it came to my mind that I would like to feel Rocio’s energy, if possible”.
“So I hugged the coffin, Rocio’s coffin,” she added. “You have to think that we are Catholics also, Fernando’s family are very Catholic, and the grandfather was in front of me seeing me doing this. And we started a conversation, speaking about Lazarus’s resurrection, and resurrection existed as a fact, and why not here, you know.”
Paloma described too how her parents identified the broken body of their daughter in Omagh and how her father “kissed her on the forehead. And in front of him was the ambassador of Spain, and he said: ‘I’ve never seen so much love in a kiss.‘”
On Wednesday Claire Hayes recounted how her 16-year-old brother Alan Radford, who was killed in the blast, was “unique and different and did not follow the crowd” and how “no man-made fibre or structure could ever create a bond as strong as” he had with his mother, Marion.
When he went into Omagh town centre with his mother on the day of the bombing Claire instructed him to make sure he got his hair cut – “a number 2 round the sides and get it cut on top and for God’s sake remember to buy gel.”
His last words to her using her nickname were: “Yeah, okay, Sissa. I love you, I’ll see you later” or “I’ll see you some time”.
She related, too, how one of his best friends was a girl called Catherine, a Catholic who he often walked to her Catholic school although he, a Protestant, went to the local high school, and how Catherine in her school uniform would sometimes be taunted because of her religion.He couldn’t get his head around the sectarianism, she said.
“Alan had just the view of a human with a kind heart, that’s all that mattered. He didn’t understand the violence, he didn’t understand the politics. He didn’t want to understand it. To him, it was just hatred and he wasn’t the person to hold on to hate or hate somebody for their religion, for their race or their colour.”
Outside the arts centre Claire made clear that she wanted the Irish Government to fully assist the inquiry and expressed doubts over whether this would happen. In Belfast this week Tánaiste Simon Harris offered a “categoric” assurance that the “Irish Government will ensure full co-operation with the inquiry”.
On Wednesday too we heard, as Turnbull described it, of the “incomprehensible” loss of three generations of one family: of 30-year-old Avril Monaghan killed along with her 20-month-old daughter Maura, her mother Mary Grimes – celebrating her 66th birthday the day of the bombing – and her unborn twins.
During that hearing an ultrasound picture was shown of the twins, who were two months from birth.
“The pictures of the scan are a reminder of the futures that never became a reality following the bomb,” said Avril’s daughter Aoibheann in a video recording to the inquiry.
Debra-Anne Cartwright was awaiting her A-level results, which arrived on the day of her funeral confirming that she had gained a place at Manchester University
Also on Wednesday the inquiry heard about 20-month-old Breda Devine, from Donemana in Co Tyrone, the second-youngest of the victims. Her family in a statement remembered how she was born three months prematurely but had “clung to life in hospital, and had grown to be a healthy little girl”.
She was due to be a flower girl at the wedding of her uncle and was in Omagh with her mother who was buying a wedding present and new shoes for the wedding for Breda.
Thursday’s hearing opened with a statement paying tribute to 20-year-old Debra-Anne Cartwright who was working in a beauty salon in Omagh on the day of the explosion. She was awaiting her A-level results, which arrived on the day of her funeral confirming that she had gained a place at Manchester University to study textile design.
She was involved in cross-community work when she attended Omagh High School. Debra-Anne, who was described as “full of life and energy”, was caught in the blast as she was walking down Market Street in Omagh after being evacuated from the beauty salon.
Shawneen Conway said her 18-year-old brother Gareth, who was killed in the explosion, “left behind a legacy of love, hard work and quiet strength that continues to be felt by those who knew him”.
She said her sister, who was working as a nurse that day, had never psychologically recovered, and her brother Tom “also struggled to cope with the grief and passed away seven years after Gareth”.
“The bombing didn’t just take Gareth’s life”, said Shawneen, “it ripped our family apart and left a permanent void. It affected how I felt about where I came from, driving me away from Northern Ireland.”
Everything I’ve achieved is incredibly bitter-sweet because my mother’s not here to witness it
— Gareth McCrystal
Gareth McCrystal was 15 when his 43-year-old mother, Geraldine Breslin, was killed. This year she would have been celebrating her 70th birthday. He is 42 now and found it “terrifying” that next year he will have outlived her in terms of age.
Geraldine was a single mother, and they lived in his maternal grandparents’ house. He had a “wonderful” childhood and a “fantastic” relationship with his mother.
“I adored her, I loved her unconditionally and she loved me unconditionally. I was her only child and she was very protective of me. She was one in a million.”
She met Mark Breslin in 1993 and after two years they married, moving into a new house. She was 40 and it was the first time she had owned a house. “She was delirious with excitement at moving.”
Until the bomb, their life was “filled with contentment”. His mother worked in Watterson’s drapers in Omagh.
The last time he saw her was when she came home for her lunch that day. The inquiry also heard how, before the bomb, she brought two children who had become separated from their mother to safety away from the blast centre, and back to their mum – an act the father described as saving the children.
After bolting down his food with Geraldine and Mark, he ran to his room to play a new video game he had just bought. He was engrossed in the game.
“My mother was leaving to go back to work, and she had said to me: ‘Are you not coming downstairs to say goodbye to me?’
“But I didn’t and I shouted down the stairs: ‘Sure why don’t you just go on, I’ll see you later on’. Because I thought I was going to see her three to four hours later maximum. So she did go on.”
Visibly distressed, he continued: “She got in the car and she drove away.”
Since her death, his father has been a “shell of the man he was”.
When he was 20, Gareth moved to Birmingham to study computer science. He wanted to be away from Omagh because there were “too many bad memories” and because he felt there was too much press intrusion, even five years on from the bombing.
But it was an “ill-thought-out move”. He was extremely angry and bitter and started drinking heavily at university. He knew his mother would not judge him but that she would have been appalled at his “pathetic” condition.
He returned to Omagh in 2005. Eventually he figured that alcohol “was not the answer” and he hasn’t touched a drink for 13 years.
He now had a “wonderful marriage” and three “amazing” children.
“Everything I’ve achieved is incredibly bitter-sweet because my mother’s not here to witness it,” he said.
“I know she would have got a real thrill out of becoming a grandmother and meeting my wife ... I’m proud of my achievements, but it is with a sense of regret. I wish she was here.”
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
