Market Street Omagh: Bomb Memorial Photo: © Michael Fisher
It was a journey I didn’t want to make. Fifteen years ago on this same Sunday, I left Tydavnet around 8am and headed for Omagh. I attended Mass at St Matthew’s, Garvaghey (the chapel associated with John Montague) and then made my way to the county town. Market Street was full of debris and the whole area was cordoned off as a police investigation got underway. This morning I repeated the journey, passing the chapel at Garvaghey at 8:30am and heading to the Sacred Heart church in Omagh for Sunday Mass.
Omagh Bomb Memorial Park
I was surprised that there was no mention of those who died in the 1998 bomb, although the priest did ask for prayers for those in Egypt and Syria. Perhaps the bomb victims were remembered at Mass last weekend. There was also a commemoration in the town on Thursday 15th, the exact day of the atrocity. This morning there was a very different view along Market Street, looking towards the Courthouse, as my first picture shows.
The previous afternoon in 1998, after coming home from the Tydavnet Show, which I was also at yesterday, the news had come through about a major bomb attack in Omagh, with several casualties. I headed off to Omagh that Saturday evening and reported from Tyrone County Hospital as the extent of the fatalities and the injuries became clear.
Dominic Pinto, former consultant surgeon, Tyrone County Hospital
Some Spanish women were desperately trying to find out more information from the hospital staff. In the operating theatres, Dr Dominic Pinto, who I met later this morning at a separate commemoration for the victims of the Ballygawley bus bomb, and his colleagues were working non-stop trying to deal with the injured. Many had to be transferred to other hospitals for further treatment. Mr Pinto described the scene at the time:
“When I came to the front of the hospital, it was absolutely quiet. What greeted me when I got into the main corridor was sheer pandemonium. This was not a major incident, but a major disaster of battlefield proportions. There were people lying in corridors of the accident and emergency department, overflowing into the radiology department. Some 240 injured people arrived within the first 45 minutes“. (www.wesleyjohnston.com)
The Spanish connection later turned out to be a group of students who had been studying English in Buncrana and who had got caught up in the explosion during a trip to Omagh. One 12 year old Spanish boy Fernando Blasco Baselga from Madrid died as well as a 23 year-old teacher from Spain, Rocio Abad Ramos, also from Madrid. Three young boys from Buncrana, Oran Doherty aged 8, 12 year-old Sean McLaughlin, and James Barker, also 12, were killed in the explosion. In April 2000, the body of James was re-buried in a small graveyard at his former school in England, St George’s in Weybridge. I remember visiting it in 2008 when I interviewed his father Victor.
Rest in Peace: Avril Monaghan
Three generations of women from one family in County Tyrone were killed in the Omagh bomb: a 65 year old grandmother, Mary Grimes from Beragh, her 30 year old daughter Avril Monaghan who was expecting twins, and an 18 month-old granddaughter, Maura Monaghan from Aughindarragh in Augher. I remembered them as I visited the peaceful graveyard at the Forth Chapel, Ballynagurragh (St Macartan’s), where my McCann relatives are interred close to Avril’s grave.
British Legion Aughnacloy representative with Michael Gallagher & Stephen Gault
Then at the Ballygawley bus bomb commemoration I met Michael Gallagher of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group. His 21 year-old son Aiden was killed in the Omagh attack. Michael went on to attend the service at Newtownsaville Church of Ireland church for the Ballygawley bus victims (eight British soldiers) and five other members of the security forces who had been killed in two other incidents in the surrounding area. Another victims’ campaigner to attend the Ballygawley commemoration was Stephen Gault, who was injured and who lost his father in the Enniskillen bomb on Remembrance Sunday in November 1987.
Michael Fisher's News 
I am from the Augher area,went to school with older members of the Monaghan family.Was very saddened by the Omagh bombing.Just saw this website,Interested in relationship to McCann,Which McCann?as I am related to McCanns also.
just found this site while looking for something else.
the McCann DR’s in England were my mothers !st cousins.Willie who lived in Aughnacloy was an auctioneer as was his father John who was my mothers uncle>It really is a small world .I often wonder where the Smith family went,I remember Finbar who died in an air crash also Fr.Reggie and Nora There was another girl I think her name was Peggy & as far as I know she kept house in England for Dr Frank
That was many many years ago as I was a child then & I am now 85 and live in Florida.
Peggy (Smyth) is my mother and as a young girl was sent from Castleblayney to live with her MCCANN grandparents in Aughnacloy and attend school there just across the road beside the chapel. Thank you for making contact. I went to Shipley last year but was unable to track down the street where the doctors lived. They are all buried at the Forth chapel near Augher. Thank you for making contact.
Peggy Smyth daughter to Tissie McCann & John F. Smyth local J.P. in Monaghan sister to Finbar lost in a plane crash he would have been ,roughly,about my age which is 89.you had 2 uncles in england Dr’s.Good God it’s a small world ,I live in Florida,John McCann the auctioneer was your grandfather and uncle to my mother.
You are wrong about the generation. John McCann auctioneer and JP and town Councillor in Aughnacloy where he was also a director of the Clogher Valley Railway was my great grandfather. His sons Frank and John? were GPs in Shipley, Yorkshire and are buried at St Macartan’s the Forth Chapel near Augher. My other grand uncle Willie (bachelor) who took over the business and lived at Hilton House opposite the Catholic Chapel in Aughnacloy is also buried there.
My grandmother was Elizabeth (Tessie) McCann, a sister of Willie. She married John F Smyth a solicitor from Castleblayney who went on to become County Registrar in Monaghan in 1937.
My mother Peggy celebrated her 99th birthday in March and my aunt Sr Nora Smyth RSCJ Armagh is the only other survivor of a family of nine. She is the youngest.
Thanks for getting in touch and apologies about the delay in responding.