The Omagh Bomb Inquiry, the most devastating Public Inquiry yet and more to come

The Omagh Bombing Inquiry, the Pat Finucane Public Inquiry, the Clonroe Coroner’s report, McGurk’s Bar bombing and the calls for repeal of the Legacy Act are just some of the happenings already this year which ensure that “Legacy issues” are in the media spotlight again. There has been much commentary and analysis (see www.truthrecoveryprocess.ie on these pages) but I wonder has there been much public engagement?

In the Republic newspapers, radio and television cover all these issues prominently but there seems to be little or no feedback. The Irish Times in addition released the result of its latest poll in collaboration with the ARINS project. Even a front page headline “Support for Irish unity grows” and a follow up leading editorial failed to produce any letters to the editor.

Professor Hennessy in his excellent submission to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the House of Commons lucidly sets out the case for an authoritative history of the troubles. His recommendations acknowledge the need to recognise “multiple narratives” whilst establishing an “authoritative account”. Those tasked with this unenviable assignment should have access to “all archives available including those of the State”. (I assume he means ‘States’, so as to include the Republic.) Interestingly he hopes (believes) that gaining access to the security services’ files will reveal as much about the paramilitary actions as it will about the role of the Governments.

The Truth Recovery Process mirrors the call for the security services files (in both jurisdictions) to be opened up to the scrutiny of not only historians but also the judicial system and, most importantly a truth and reconciliation body. For too long, the UK Government has hidden behind the “overriding” need for “state security” in its reluctance to reveal what happened. The Irish Government seems to believe that their role (through An Garda and the Army) over the years was minor. Without the Governments’ acceptance of the need for, and full participation in a reconciliation body, and an authoritative history of the period there is no hope for the resolution of “Legacy issues”. Morally the two Governments must now open up their records. Yes there will be embarrassment and compensation claims but that is a small price to pay if Northern Ireland grows into a normal functioning society.

If the Governments open up their records and show contrition where it is due I believe that will turn public attention towards the paramilitaries. No longer will their political agents be able to solely focus on the wrongdoings of the state, nor will they be able to protest that “there was no other way”. If that is the outcome then vastly more “victims” of the troubles will learn about the actions that killed or injured their loved ones. Hopefully such an outcome will allow and enable acts of reconciliation which will help to heal communities and develop a normal functioning society.

John Green, Southern Chair, Truth Recovery process

Ex-garda to testify against State in INLA murders case

Maeve Sheehan, Belfast Telegraph, February 17th, 2025

A retired senior detective has agreed to testify against the Irish State in a legal action taken by the son of prominent INLA leaders Dominic and Mary McGlinchey alleging that gardaí failed to properly investigate his parents' murders.

Dominic Óg McGlinchey is challenging the garda investigations into the two unsolved murders that occurred six years apart in 1987 and 1994 alleging that evidence was not pursued.

He was granted leave to take two judicial reviews against the Irish State.

In the latest development, Pat Marry, one of the force's most high-profile former detectives, has sworn an affidavit on behalf of Dominic Óg McGlinchey in his legal action which also names the Garda Commissioner and Ireland's Attorney General.

The contents of Mr Marry's affidavit have not been disclosed but are understood to support McGlinchey's claim that the investigation file on his mother's murder went missing.

Mr Marry was assigned to review the garda investigation files on the McGlinchey murders to identify new lines of inquiry after senior gardaí met with the family in 2012.

However, Mr Marry could not locate the investigation file and as a result had to abandon his review of her murder. He previously told the Sunday Independent he spent two months looking for the file, in Louth garda stations, Garda HQ and he also contacted members of the original investigation team.

“I wrote to the authorities to say that I was unable to locate the file on Mary McGlinchey and could not progress a review of the case but confirmed that the Dominic McGlinchey file was brought up to a 2015 standard,” he said.

Mr Marry will be called to testify as a witness against the Irish State if the case proceeds to a full hearing in the High Court in Dublin.

Mr Marry investigated some of the Republic's most high-profile murders while he was a detective inspector in Dundalk and is now a crime author.

Dominic and Mary McGlinchey were key figures in the republican paramiltary group the INLA.

McGlinchey — from Bellaghy and known as 'Mad Dog' — was responsible for a campaign of bombings and ruthless assassinations of informers and loyalists. He claimed in a newspaper interview that he killed 30 people and was involved in 200 bombings and shootings. His wife had been cleared of kidnap charges the year before she was murdered.

In court papers, Dominic Óg McGlinchey acknowledged his parents' involvement in “conflict” and said “unimaginable things happened”, but added he was taking the action in “pursuit of truth” and to seek “closure”.

He described how his mother was shot in 1987 while bathing himself and his brother Declan in the family home in Dundalk. She was shot nine times by masked gunmen, including twice in the face.

Declan witnessed his mother's murder; Dominic Óg, who was in a bedroom, ran outside in terror.

He was 16 when he witnessed his father's murder in 1994. He was shot 14 times by masked gunmen outside a phone box in Drogheda, as his son looked on from the car.

The family have questioned whether and to what extent gardaí investigated loyalist involvement in the murders, in a list of more than 40 questions submitted to An Garda Síochána relating to witnesses interviewed, forensic evidence and alleged collusion.

Dominic Óg McGlinchey claims he has not received a proper response. He was once involved in dissident republicanism but later urged the removal of the gun from politics.

The case is next before the High Court in Dublin tomorrow.

An Garda Síochána said it cannot comment on matters before the courts. In previous statements, gardaí said Mary McGlinchey's murder file was in Dundalk Garda Station.

Omagh Inquiry

Conor Macauley, Northern Correspondent, RTE

A fireman who rushed to help people in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing has told the inquiry that the scene reminded him of an iconic image of the Vietnam War.

The final week of the commemorative hearings at the inquiry has begun. It will sit for three days this week, bringing to an end this phase of proceedings.

The inquiry is hearing from representatives of the fire and ambulance service who assisted at the scene on the day of the dissident republican bombing on 15 August 1998.

Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed. More than 200 people were injured

Over the past three weeks, families of the dead and survivors of the bombing have given emotional testimony about the impact of the 1998 explosion in the County Tyrone market town.

Station Commander Paddy Quinn has described how he had been working in his carpet shop when he heard the blast and ran to help.

He said a crew was ready and on the scene within minutes of the blast.

Mr Quinn, who is still a serving officer, said they had assumed the area had been cleared and they would be dealing with a fire and damaged buildings.

They had been told the blast had happened at the courthouse.

The blast detonated on 15 August 1998 in the Co Tyrone town

But when they turned the corner into Market Street, the scale of the unfolding tragedy was immediately apparent.

There was a young girl running across the road terrified

"I now have a permanent photo in my head. The thought I had - it looked like when I had seen a photograph many years ago of the Vietnam War," he said.

"There was a cloud dust and there was a young girl running across the road terrified and that's just the image ... that's just what it looked like."

Mr Quinn went on to say that the first person he saw from his fire engine was his own mother, who was sitting on the pavement holding a toothbrush. He later learned that she had been carrying plastic shopping bags but the blast had blown them out of her hands.

He said he had not suffered serious physical injuries but from then until now, he and she had never spoken of that day again.

Mr Quinn said he went on to help an injured woman to an Ulsterbus, which was taking the injured to hospital

He said he had not looked around him.

"I didn't look around me too much. I knew there was people injured. I remember leaving here there, as I turned to get on to the bus I noticed the floor was red, not blue."

Local people were begging him to help find loved ones

He found one of the dead in a shop and spoke to another man who told him his wife had been killed and he was searching for his children.

He said as an Omagh man he was being approached by local people who were begging him to help find their loved ones.

Mr Quinn said he thought he had spent 20 mins at the scene but when he returned to the station it transpired that they had been there for three to four hours.

"I remember going through my head what I'd done and it seemed like I just needed to do like 100 jobs but never got to do complete any of them," he said.

"It seemed to me that you were going to the greatest need but then the greatest need was superseded by another greatest need and that's what we just kept doing all day."

The following day people were phoning him to ask how he was. He told them he was fine, but in reality he was crying.

Unable to walk or drive up Market Street

Mr Quinn said for many years he was unable to walk or drive up Market Street. He said it was a place where people had died and he could not bring himself to do it.

For years, his dreams were haunted by images of things he believed he had seen.

He said his colleagues had also suffered. One had lost a member of his family, another had never turned out to another incident and more continued to need ongoing support.

He said he had been a firefighter for almost 30 years and had turned out to many distressing incidents.

"It's a privilege to serve my own community. In those 29 years I've attended many tragic and horrendous incidents but nothing I have responded to since the Omagh bomb has ever come anywhere close."

Mr Quinn concluded his evidence by repeating a saying common amongst fire crews.

"The firefighter may leave the incident, but the incident never leaves the firefighter."

Paramedic's role became one of body recovery

The inquiry also heard from paramedic Richard Quigley.

By the time Mr Quigley reached Omagh, the injured had been taken to hospital and his role became one of body recovery.

He described how he and his colleagues had retrieved the bodies of the dead from shops where they had been placed out of sight and from a small entry just off the street.

Mr Quigley said he remembered a strong smell of beer which was flowing down the street from a wrecked pub opposite the scene of the blast.

He said as he lifted the bodies he could not distinguish which end was which. It was the same for all the bags he lifted.

The victims were loaded in groups of threes and fours into the back of ambulances parked at the rear of Market Street.

"We then drove in convoy with lights and silently to the temporary morgue set up in the army (camp) gymnasium," said Mr Quigley.

"I recall seeing the number of body bags laid out and each had its own area, all in rows with a chair at the end.

"The size of the gym and the number of body bags on the floor was something that should only have been seen in a movie."

He said he had never been back to Market Street in the years since the bombing.

"On a personal note I have yet to walk around Market Street or to the Peace Garden.

"Will I ever walk through the alleyway where the bodies were laid end to end? Probably never.

"Should I? I might get closure."

Son robbed of ‘life full of possibilities’ says father

Jonathan McCambridge, Irish News, February 18th, 2025

A YOUNG boy killed in the bombing was robbed of a “life full of possibilities”, his father has said.

Victor Barker also told the inquiry that he does not believe his daughter has ever recovered from the guilt that her brother replaced her on a trip to Omagh on the day of the massacre.

James Barker was 12 when he was killed in the atrocity.

His father told the inquiry that James had grown up in England but his maternal grandparents moving to Buncrana, Co Donegal, made his wife want to move back to Ireland.

Mr Barker, who stayed in England, said his son loved living there despite missing him.

He told the inquiry he was on a visit to Donegal in August 1998.

Mr Barker said his daughter had been due to go on a trip to Omagh on the Saturday but had said she was not feeling well and James asked if he could go instead.

“This was the last time I saw my son alive,” Mr Barker said.

He added: “When the news of the Good Friday Agreement appeared to signal the end of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the feeling of peace at last permeated all around.

“Then fulfilment of my wife’s desire to return to her homeland and to give the children a better life seemed close to fruition.

“Particularly as James was due to start his education at Campbell College Belfast the following September.”

He continued: “As he left the house that morning he had a life full of possibilities in front of him.

“There is nothing more precious than family time.

“Little did I know that the life he had built and my wife’s dream of a better life for the children was about to be torn apart forever.”

Mr Barker had gone for dinner in Donegal.

He said that in the evening he had been told there had been a “dreadful accident” in Omagh but he was not aware of a bomb.

Later in the evening Mr Barker received a call from a priest in Buncrana who told him to go to Omagh.

When he reached Omagh Leisure Centre, the inquiry heard, he was asked if his son had any identifying marks on his body.

He was transported overnight to a British army barracks which was being used as a temporary mortuary.

“It was at this moment I knew that James was not in hospital,” Mr Barker said.

He was then asked to identify the body of his son.

“Those moments probably play on my mind more than anything,” he said.

James Barker was 12 when he was killed in the Omagh bombing

“I cannot begin to describe what those hours were like… the next few hours were simply hell.”

Mr Barker said he also had to identify the body of the brother of a Spanish exchange student who had been staying with his family.

He added: “We then had to break the news to our daughter. Who was naturally distraught.

“I do not believe she has ever recovered from the feelings of guilt that she should have been in Omagh, and not her brother James.

“The raw emotion of the feeling of helplessness remains as real now as it was then.”

Mr Barker told the inquiry how he picked up a copy of a newspaper the next day where there was a picture of James on the front page.

“He was on a stretcher. I recall saying to my friends, ‘look what they’ve done to my lovely boy’. I simply broke down,” he said.

Mr Barker said the funeral of his son in Buncrana was “almost like a state funeral”.

“There was no privacy and a total lack of control for us as a family, which was intolerable in retrospect,” he said.

Mr Barker later had his son’s remains exhumed and brought to England.

“James’s life was full of promise… he was outgoing, caring, a fun-loving child,” he said.

Mr Barker said he continues to endure “some very dark moments”.

“But I have done all I can to bring some kind of justice for James and everyone else,” he said.

“We have been woefully let down by a very poorly conducted police investigation and, I might add, a chief constable in Sir Ronnie Flanagan who, in my view, fell well short of the mark.

“The civil case has taken a great deal out of so many families.

“James had his life taken away from him in the most evil and barbaric fashion and he was robbed of his bright and happy future.

“I sometimes doubt whether he has the same human rights as the terrorists.

“We should all remember that pain has no nationality and no borders, but neither does the love of the human heart.”

Concluding statements

Concluding the proceedings for yesterday, counsel to the inquiry Paul Greaney KC said that Tracey Devine, who was severely injured in the explosion which killed her daughter Breda, had died on Saturday. He said the inquiry would not sit during her funeral today.

Mr Greaney read statements from three survivors, Maeve O’Brien, her sister Dervlagh, and Damian Murphy.

Maeve was 13 and had been shopping in Omagh on the day of the attack.

She said people were moved to Market Street, where the bomb exploded, but her grandmother said they should move to another location.

She said this was the reason she and her family were not physically harmed.

Her statement said: “My life has been divided into a time of living before and after the Omagh bomb.

“It was the end of childhood and the final loss of innocence for me.

“Even now, in 2024, I can viscerally remember the sound of the bomb, the strange electrical smell and the haze coming from Market Street.

“We have been woefully let down by a very poorly conducted police investigation and, I might add, a chief constable in Sir Ronnie Flanagan who, in my view, fell well short of the mark

“I remember the panic and fear in everyone’s movements after the initial blast.

“I have a true understanding of the saying your blood running cold.”

Dervlagh was eight years old on the day the bomb exploded.

She recalled the power of the blast causing her to fall to the ground and crawling underneath a car for safety.

She said the subsequent scenes of devastation in the town have had a lifelong impact on her.

“In my 20s I developed panic attacks,” she said.

“I took myself to Omagh minor injuries unit, as I believed I was having a heart attack.”

She added: “I feel my experience will have a lifelong negative impact on the quality of my life.”

Mr Murphy was training to be a teacher in 1998 and had gone into Omagh to send some emails.

He said the bomb exploded as he reached the town’s library.

“I came back through the smoke and dust to Lower Market Street,” he said.

“The screams and smells were overwhelming.

“I first saw people come past me with loads of bleeding.”

He said he met three Spanish girls who were bleeding and he gave them paper towels.

“I was somewhat dazed as I entered what looked like Market Street,” he said.

“My immediate thought was to get people out of here.

“I jumped in a window and grabbed a chair. I saw a policeman. I shouted at him and said ‘Come on, let’s get people out of here’.

“We put people on the chair and lifted them down for easier access to cars and ambulances.

“I can’t remember how many times we did this.”