It’s 10 years since the Real IRA car bomb exploded in the market town of Omagh on Saturday, August 15, 1998. It was the worst single terrorist atrocity in the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, claiming the lives of 29 people and unborn twins. More than 300 were injured.
BBC Northern Ireland marks the 10th anniversary of Northern Ireland’s worst single atrocity – the Omagh Bomb.
Omagh - The Legacy was first screened in 1999. Filmed over eight months and made by Iain Webster of Network Media for BBC Northern Ireland, the documentary followed the courageous and often heartbreaking struggle back to health of two of the many young people who were injured.
Claire Gallagher (15) from Omagh, lost her sight in the explosion and nine-year-old Stephen Coyle from Strabane suffered massive internal injuries and lost a major part of his shoulder. He faced more than a dozen operations. The film catalogued the weeks of pain and the long road back to health for both young people.
Now in Omagh -The Legacy: 10 Years On - Iain Webster has revisited Claire and Stephen to see how they have coped over the years.
Claire was in Omagh with her school friends on the day her life changed forever. She now works as a counsellor with the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) helping people whose sight is failing. She talks openly about coming to terms with her loss of sight following the explosion.
Claire says: “I’ve tried to make the most of my life and I know that other people have found it very difficult and are still finding it very difficult to come to terms with everything. Everybody just has their way of coping and my way of coping is to get on with it.”
BBC Northern Ireland gained exclusive access to the biggest day of Claire’s life – her marriage to her fiance Ryan last October.
Her father Seamus said: “I think she copes brilliantly. There’s nothing gets in her way. The way that she’s going on and going through college and now working, she’s an unbelievable girl.”
Stephen Coyle and his girlfriend returned to the bomb scene last month. His memories of the day remain as vivid as ever.
He recalls: “I was just stepping off the kerb, the next minute there was a flash and I was up in the air and it was like a flash of heat. And I was thrown about the place. And I remember things were coming into my body. It was like someone shooting you with a BB gun. You just feel like you’re getting hit all over.”
After 10 years Stephen’s injuries are mostly healed. He is now a keen
cyclist competing regularly in competitions.
He adds: “If I stop training for a while, I seem to get a sore arm
more often but when I’m training it seems to be fine. It does help
you. It’s like freedom, you can take yourself places. Just to feel
you can do something you feel proud that you were able to achieve, something
that other people might not be able to achieve or won’t try.”
Stephen is now learning to fly and has his heart set on becoming a commercial pilot. He explains: “When I was out of hospital in 1999 the RAF flew me in a helicopter over Omagh. I was really impressed and that’s what made me think about flying as a career.
Also featured in the documentary are moving interviews with the families of Fernando Blasco Baselga (12) from Spain and James Barker, also 12, whose family had moved from England to Buncrana in search of a better quality of life.
Manuel Blasco was hurt in a terrorist bomb attack in Madrid in 1992 but never thought his son Fernando faced any risk when he sent him and his brother and sister to Ireland in 1998 to improve their English. Fernando was one of two Spanish people killed in the Omagh explosion.
When asked, during an interview at their home in Spain, whether he felt his son’s death had played a part in the Peace Process, Manuel Blasco replied: “Not Fernando’s death itself. But the fact that there was a terrorist attack with that number of deaths, and the amount of suffering and damage caused by it, made the two sides in Ireland react."
“As a result everything has been calming down gradually and it doesn’t seem that Ireland is in a process of terror now, as it was, not long ago.”
Fernando’s mother Lucrecia Baselga recalls: “I read the newspapers at the airport as I left for Belfast. They said a Spanish person was missing and he was likely to be dead. I didn’t want to think it was my son."
“When I arrived in Northern Ireland they took us to a room at the airport and they told me Fernando was dead. It’s like being tortured, like someone ripping away a part of you. My daughter Lucrecia was injured and in hospital and we had to be strong for her.”
Solicitor Victor Barker lost his son James in the explosion and says: “The bomb had consequences for everyone. It certainly had consequences for me and for my wife and for my children. My eldest daughter has perhaps learned to live with it. She of all the three has probably dealt with it in the best way she can.
“Human beings are different and if something affects them like a bomb or a murder or a real tragedy in their lives people do react differently. My reaction was to come into work and put my head down and get on with my life and try and deal with the other aspects of what happened in terms of pursuing justice and looking to the future.”
James’s mother Donna-Maria said: “I still think he is going to walk in through that door. But no. I’ve lost 10 years of my life with the anger and the bitterness. I’ve lost 10 years of my children growing up and I want to put that right for the next 10 years and I want to try and make good….somehow.”
Iain Webster of Holywood production company Network Media, who produced, directed and filmed both documentaries, said: “ Over the ten years I’ve kept in touch with Claire and Stephen. They faced terrible trauma and so did their families, but they have both come through their ordeal with incredible bravery. But both Claire and Stephen realise that despite their horrific injuries they were actually fortunate because so many other families lost their loved ones.
“It was important that this new documentary heard from some of the bereaved relatives too. Despite being from countries far apart, Fernando and James had become firm friends that Summer. Their deaths have tragically affected their families in different ways and the tenth anniversary will have major significance for them.
Both documentaries are narrated by Liam Neeson.