Irish Govt must establish separate inquiry into Omagh bombing
Nuala O’Loan, Irish Catholic, February 13, 2025
Saturday August 15, 1998 was a glorious summer day. Like thousands of others, I will never forget it. At approximately 3.05pm that afternoon a massive terrorist bomb exploded in Omagh. Three telephone calls were made, the first at 2.29pm warning that a bomb was going to detonate in the town. Police were clearing the streets when the bomb exploded. Twenty-nine people and two unborn children died in the explosion. Some 250 people were injured, some of them seriously. There was very extensive damage to property. It was the single worst terrorist incident since the start of ‘The Troubles’ in 1969.
Responsibility for the bomb was claimed by the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA). A police investigation was established after the bombing, but no-one has been prosecuted for the murders in Northern Ireland.
Investigation
Nearly three years later I was Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland when, on July 29, 2001, the lead story in the Sunday People newspaper was about allegations from a man described as a former British security force agent, called Kevin Fulton. It was headed “I told cops about Omagh”, and the implication was that the Omagh Bomb could have been prevented had the police acted on the information which Kevin Fulton had provided. The article also included other serious allegations.
I discussed it in detail with my staff and concluded, on balance, that it was in the public interest, to investigate the allegations being made by Kevin Fulton and any other surrounding and relevant issues in relation to this matter.
It was a profoundly difficult investigation but by the end of it, it was clear that there had been major problems with the investigation including the fact that Special Branch had not shared relevant material with the investigators, and that a detailed anonymous call was made to police on August 4, 1998 which stated that an unspecified attack would be made on police in Omagh on August 15, 1998. The police officer who received the telephone call informed Special Branch immediately. The Omagh Commander, who should have been informed of the threat, was not told about it until two years later on August 15, 2000. Had he been told about it he could have decided what action to take to protect the town and its police officers on August 15, 1998.
Other intelligence was also identified relevant to the Omagh bombing, which was not shared as it should have been.
We rapidly also established that, following a very good internal review of the Omagh investigation, the RUC were aware that there had been major failings in the investigation including the fact that significant intelligence held by Special Branch was not shared with the investigators. Little had been done to address the many issues raised.
No attempt was made to investigate whether there were any links”
Among the intelligence not shared by Special Branch was material relating to previous linked explosions: in January 1998 in Enniskillen; in February 1998 in Moira; in April 1998 in Lisburn, in May 1998 in Belleek; in July 1998 in Newry, and in August 1998 in Banbridge. In July 1998 there had also been an attempted mortar attack in Newry. No attempt was made to investigate whether there were any links between those explosions and what happened in Omagh.
Then there emerged information about listening exercises by British authorities on particular telephones in Ireland during the relevant period.
Determination
It became clear that RIRA had been operating across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Eventually a Garda sergeant, John White, produced copious information to me about the alleged involvement of a Garda informant in procuring cars for RIRA for use in the North. This information, he said, was reported back to Garda authorities, who took some action. His information included the fact that his informant had been asked to supply a particular car with a big boot, capable of carrying a very significant load to be used by RIRA before the Omagh bombing, that the informant had been unable to find a car and that eventually another car was found which was used by the Omagh bombers. I reported it to the Irish Government.
There is evidence that the bomb was made in Ireland and driven into Northern Ireland on August 15, 1998.
I have always said that “The persons responsible for the Omagh Bombing are the terrorists who planned and executed the atrocity”.
The courage and determination of the relatives of those killed has been extraordinary. They sought a series of inquiries and brought court actions, north and south over decades seeking to establish what had happened and much more information emerged in court hearings about the activities of RIRA.
The judge said there would be real advantage if one were to take place”
In July 2021, Mr Justice Horner in the NI High Court said he was satisfied that there were “certain grounds which give rise to plausible arguments that there was a real prospect of preventing the Omagh bombing that deserve to be fully investigated through an Article 2 ECHR compliant investigation.” While not within his power to order an investigation in the Republic of Ireland, the judge said there would be real advantage if one were to take place simultaneously with one in Northern Ireland. In 2023 the British Government established a public inquiry to determine whether the bomb could have been prevented by UK state authorities. It held a preliminary hearing in July 2024 and began substantive hearings on January 28 this year.
Opportunity
The Irish Government has promised full cooperation with the British Inquiry but has not established its own inquiry into what happened in Ireland before the bombing. It should do so.
These terrorists were working across the border. They were able to do so, despite the existence of anti-terrorist activity in the UK and Ireland.
This is an opportunity to learn from the past, to care for the victims and survivors of Omagh. We need to be able to reassure them and the public in general that we know what happened, that we have identified how the Real IRA were able to operate with impunity in 1998.
People need to know, above all, that their governments will not cover up”
We have a responsibility to those so terribly affected by the Omagh Bomb to provide the most complete picture possible. This will emerge most effectively if there are two inquiries running side by side sharing all relevant information, with one aim; to establish what was known, whether the bomb could have been prevented.
People need to know, above all, that their governments will not cover up at times like this, but will act with courage and integrity.
There had been major failings in the investigation including the fact that significant intelligence held by Special Branch was not shared with the investigators”
The courage and determination of the relatives of those killed has been extraordinary. They sought a series of inquiries and brought court actions, north and south over decades seeking to establish what had happened”
Omagh Inquiry
Blast left crater in road with severely injured victims inside it says survivor
Jonathan McCambridge, Irish News, February 14th, 2025
A SURVIVOR of the bombing yesterday told the inquiry the explosion left a crater in the middle of the street with severely injured victims inside it.
David McSwiggan said he repeatedly returned to the scene to search for his missing friends.
The bombing occurred one week after his 20th birthday. He had been due to start university in England the following month.
He had gone to Omagh town centre with his friends David and Pauline because there was to be a break-dancing show later that day.
He said a security alert had resulted in police moving hundreds of people away from the courthouse, unknowingly moving them closer to the car bomb.
He said: “Our chat was sceptical of the bomb scare being real as the Troubles usually happened in other places.
“Our wee town, the backwater that it was, did not merit to be a target, especially as the Troubles were supposed to be over.
“Suddenly, an immense force seemed to bring the bricks of the buildings tumbling, disintegrating around us.
“A dark, dusty, smoky blackness just seemed to envelope everything. Then heat and fire.”
Mr McSwiggan said the street where the bomb had exploded had been “completely transformed”.
He said: “There were lifeless, injured and trapped people everywhere.
“Buildings collapsing onto the street.
“There was something burning fiercely near to where we had been standing moments earlier.
“Further down the street there was a crater, a large hole in the road.”
Mr McSwiggan said there were people in the crater, including one person with severe injuries who had been left naked by the force of the explosion, and another who had severe stomach lacerations.
“The hole in the street was filling up with water,” he said.
“The pipes had burst and water was mixing with people’s blood and running in rivulets down the street.
“I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
Mr McSwiggan said he could smell and taste “melted plastic, burnt hair and burnt flesh”.
He said his instinct was to get to safety but that he repeatedly went back into the smoke to search for his friends.
Depraved obscenity
He said: “I couldn’t see anyone I knew among the crowd of bleeding, blackened and singed survivors.
“I repeated the cycle of going in and retreating from the scene of the explosion searching for my friends until I couldn’t take it any more.”
Mr McSwiggan said he was eventually able to phone his mother, who was a nurse, to tell her about the bomb and that she and her colleagues would be needed at the hospital.
He said: “I knew that nothing would ever be the same for us again, she too would have to see the depraved obscenity I had witnessed inflicted on our neighbours.
“It is awful to be the person to bring news like this to anyone.”
Mr McSwiggan said he was able to make it to his grandmother’s house in the town.
He said: “I still hadn’t found my friends and the thought of what had happened to them was overwhelming me.”
He was treated in hospital the next day for shrapnel cuts, minor burns and a perforated eardrum.
He said his father found out that his friends were alive, but that Pauline was seriously injured.
He told the inquiry that his mother returned from hospital later that weekend and said she had treated someone she knew who “hadn’t a tooth left in their head”.
He said his mother never spoke again about what she had experienced.
Mr McSwiggan said he had battled the effects of trauma for decades.
He said: “The idea that you could be in your local town on a Saturday afternoon and everyone was rounded up and killed in front of you, and nobody really knows why, or how, or who did it, and you are supposed to just go on with your life and never mention it again; attempting to rationalise that just never allowed me to sit right with the world.
“There have been very few days in the years since which have been unperturbed by intrusive thoughts and imagery from that day.”
Omagh victim tells of moment she realised blast had severed foot
Belfast Telegraph, February 14th, 2025
A woman who suffered horrific injuries in the Omagh bombing has told of the moment she realised the blast had severed her left foot.
Suzanne Travis told the Omagh Bombing Inquiry that shrapnel embedded in her leg from the 1998 Real IRA explosion will finally be removed later this month.
Ms Travis told the inquiry that not a day has passed since then when she is not in pain and said she would never forgive those responsible for leaving the bomb in the Co Tyrone town.
She was a 20-year-old teaching student at Liverpool in 1998, but had a summer job as a childminder back home in Omagh during the summer holidays.
She had travelled with her mother into the town centre to buy her plane ticket back to Liverpool on the day of the bombing.
Their lunch was interrupted when they were moved towards the bottom of Market Street due to a bomb alert.
Ms Travis said her mother had suggested the two of them leave the area to go to the Dunnes shop, but she had said they should stay.
She said: “That was the last thing she said to me, because it exploded after that.
“I remember as soon as it did explode, the first thought in my head was 'Oh no, it's a bomb, we should have moved'.”
She added: “When it did go off it was like a dull bang. I think that is because it was so loud my hearing was affected.
“I just remember my entire body feeling pressure. My face felt like it was being squashed. I remember being flung onto my back.”
Face covered in Rubble
Ms Travis said her face was covered in rubble and she could not see properly due to blood from a cut on her head.
She told the inquiry that two dead bodies were beside her, and she feared at first that one of them was her mother.
Ms Travis said she finally saw her mother in the middle of the road.
She said: “She must have been blown into the air when the bomb exploded and she had landed at that point in the street.”
Ms Travis said she called out to a friend who ran to get help.
She added: “It was at that point when she ran away and I looked down and my two legs were in front of me and I realised I didn't have my left foot.
“It had been completely blown off.”
Ms Travis said a stranger brought her by car to Omagh hospital. She was then transferred by ambulance to Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry alongside another victim who later died.
She told the inquiry that as her mother and father were not at the hospital, she had to give consent for her own leg to be amputated below the knee.
She said: “I remember the word amputation. I remember them giving me the pen and clipboard and I remember scribbling on it.”
The following day she was told her mother had survived and was in the same hospital in a coma, the inquiry heard.
Ms Travis said that when her mother woke from a coma she was wheeled to see her.
She said: “I said 'I was sorry, we should have gone to Dunnes when you said'.
“She was so badly injured and she just said 'it is not your fault'.”
Ms Travis said she underwent a number of surgeries and was fitted with a prosthetic leg. She said: “I was only 20 and life as I knew it had disappeared.”
She returned to university the following year and graduated as a teacher in 2001. he applied for a job at a school in Liverpool and has worked there ever since. She told the inquiry she is married and has two daughters.
