The Omagh bombing was the one worst atrocity of the Troubles.
Because the journalist Shane Harrison explains, it was carried out when hopes have been excessive in Northern Eire that the nation would by no means expertise such violence once more – 4 months after the signing of the Good Friday settlement in April 1998.
The automotive bomb on 15 August killed 29 folks, together with Aiden Gallagher, a 21-year-old mechanic. Hannah Moore hears from his father, Michael Gallagher, about that day, and about his two-decade authorized battle since: to deliver the perpetrators of the assault to justice, and to influence the federal government to launch a public inquiry into whether or not something might have been carried out to forestall it. There have been years of investigations and allegations about what the authorities knew beforehand – for instance that the police ignored essential tip-offs that one thing was imminent in Omagh.
The Actual IRA, a dissident Republican group, claimed accountability for the bombing, however nobody has ever been convicted for it. The marketing campaign for an inquiry has, nonetheless, lastly, borne fruit. Greater than 26 years after the assault, a public inquiry will start on Tuesday to listen to from bereaved households and survivors about these, like Michael’s son Aiden, who they misplaced.
