A car bombing took place in the town of Omagh in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland on 15 August 1998. It was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA), a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) splinter group who opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement, signed earlier in the year. The bombing killed 29 people and injured about 220 others, making it the deadliest incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the second deadliest incident of the conflict overall after the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974. Telephoned warnings which did not specify the location had been sent almost forty minutes beforehand, and police inadvertently moved people towards the bomb.
The bombing caused outrage both locally and internationally, spurred the Northern Ireland peace process, and dealt a severe blow to the dissident Irish republican campaign. The Real IRA denied that the bomb was intended to kill civilians and apologised; shortly after, the group declared a ceasefire. The victims included people of many backgrounds and ages: Protestants, Catholics, six teenagers, six children, a woman pregnant with twins, two Spanish tourists and others on a day trip from the Republic of Ireland. Both unionists and Irish nationalists were killed and injured. As a result of the bombing, new anti-terrorism laws were swiftly enacted by the United Kingdom and Ireland.
There have been allegations that British, Irish and US intelligence agencies had information which could have prevented the bombing, most of which came from double agents inside the Real IRA, but this information was not given to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). In 2008, the BBC reported that British intelligence agency GCHQ had recorded conversations between the bombers as the bomb was being driven into Omagh.
A 2001 report by the Police Ombudsman said that the RUC Special Branch failed to act on prior warnings and criticised the RUC's investigation of the bombing. Police reportedly obtained circumstantial and coincidental evidence against some suspects, but were unable to convict. Colm Murphy was tried and convicted of conspiring to cause the bombing, but was released on appeal after it was revealed that the Garda Síochána forged interview notes used in the case. Murphy's nephew Sean Hoey was also tried but was acquitted. In June 2009, the victims' families won a £1.6 million civil action settlement against four defendants, who were found liable for the bombing. In 2014, Seamus Daly was charged with the murder of 29 people; the case against him was withdrawn in 2016.
Background
After negotiations to end the Troubles failed in 1996, political violence resumed in Northern Ireland and peaked during the Drumcree crises. The peace process resumed in 1997. Sinn Féin accepted the Mitchell Principles in September 1997, which involved commitment to non-violence as part of the peace process negotiations. Dissident members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who saw this as a betrayal of the republican struggle for a united Ireland, left in October 1997 to form the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA).
The Real IRA's tactics were the same as those of the IRA before it. It targeted the British security forces and carried out bombings of symbolic or economic targets. Its goal was to damage the economy and cause severe disruption, thereby putting pressure on the British government to withdraw from Northern Ireland. Warnings were sent before such bombings, along with a code word so that the authorities would know it was genuine. The Real IRA began its paramilitary campaign with an attempted car bombing in Banbridge, County Down, on 7 January 1998. The 300 pounds (140 kg) explosive was defused by security forces. Over the following months, it mounted several car bomb and mortar attacks. There were also attacks or attempted attacks in Moira, Portadown, Armagh, Newry, Lisburn, Belfast, and Belleek, as well as another car bombing in Banbridge on 1 August, which caused thirty-five injuries but no deaths.
The Omagh bombing took place thirteen weeks after the Good Friday Agreement was signed in April 1998. Intended to be a comprehensive solution to the Troubles, the agreement had broad support both in Ireland and internationally.
Attack
Preparation and warnings
On 13 August, a maroon 1991 Vauxhall Cavalier was stolen from outside a house at St Macartan's Villas in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland. At that time, it bore the County Donegal registration number 91-DL-2554. The bombers replaced its Republic of Ireland number plates with fake Northern Ireland plates (MDZ 5211), and loaded the car with about 500 pounds (230 kg) of fertiliser-based explosives.
On Saturday 15 August, the bomb car was driven from County Monaghan across the Irish border to Omagh, County Tyrone, travelling north and west. A scout car drove ahead of the bomb car to warn it of any checkpoints, and the two cars were in constant contact by mobile phone. At 14:19, the bomb car was parked outside S.D. Kells' clothes shop on Omagh's Market Street, at the eastern edge of the town centre, near the crossroads with Dublin Road. The driver could not find a parking space near the intended target, Omagh Courthouse. The two male bombers armed the bomb and set the timer to detonate it in forty minutes. They left the car and walked east down Market Street towards Campsie Road before leaving Omagh in the scout car. A family of Spanish tourists happened to take photos next to the car; the man and child in the photograph survived but the photographer did not.
At around 14:30, three phone calls were made warning of a bomb in Omagh, using the same codeword that had been used in the Real IRA's bombing in Banbridge two weeks earlier: "Martha Pope". The calls were made from telephone boxes many miles away in southern County Armagh. The first warning was telephoned to Ulster Television saying, "There's a bomb, courthouse, Omagh, main street, 500lb, explosion thirty minutes." One minute later, the office received a second warning saying, "Bomb, Omagh town, fifteen minutes." The caller claimed the warning on behalf of "Óglaigh na hÉireann". The next minute, the Coleraine office of the Samaritans received a call stating that a bomb would go off on the "main street" of Omagh "about 200 yards" (180 m) from the courthouse. The recipients passed on the information to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
BBC News stated that police "were clearing an area near the local courthouse, forty minutes after receiving a telephone warning, when the bomb detonated. But the warning was unclear and the wrong area was evacuated." The warnings mentioned "main street" when there was no street by that name in Omagh, although Market Street–High Street was the town's main shopping street. It runs for hundreds of yards east–west from the site of the bomb to the courthouse. Given the warnings, police believed the bomb was near the courthouse, so they evacuated the surrounding buildings and streets. As it happened, they moved people away from the courthouse and towards the site of the bomb, placing a cordon at Scarffe's Entry. The courthouse is roughly 365 yards (334 m) from the spot where the car bomb was parked. During the later Special Criminal Court trial of Real IRA director Michael McKevitt, witnesses for the prosecution said that the inaccurate warnings were accidental. McKevitt was a former "quartermaster general" in the Provisional IRA.
Explosion and aftermath
The car bomb exploded at 15:04 BST in the crowded shopping area. It tore the car into deadly shrapnel and created a fireball and shockwave. People were caught in "a storm" of glass, masonry and metal as the blast destroyed shop fronts and blew the roofs off buildings. A thick cloud of dust and smoke filled the street. The blast was so strong that it tore up concrete and pipes burst; water running down the street turned red from the blood of dead and wounded people. Within twenty-five minutes journalists were on the street taking pictures. Twenty-one people who had been standing near the bomb were killed outright. Eight more died on the way to or in a hospital.
Injured survivor Marion Radford described hearing an "unearthly bang", followed by "an eeriness, a darkness that had just come over the place", then screams as she saw "bits of bodies, limbs" on the ground while she searched for her 16-year-old son, Alan. She later discovered he had been killed yards away from her after the two became separated minutes before the blast.
BBC News said that survivors described scenes of "utter carnage," with the dead and dying "strewn across the street and other victims screaming for help". The injured were initially taken to two local hospitals, the Tyrone County Hospital and the Erne Hospital. A local leisure centre was set up as a casualty field centre, and the British Army's Lisanelly Barracks served as a makeshift morgue. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet, rescue workers likened the scene to "battlefield conditions". Tyrone County Hospital became overwhelmed and appealed for local doctors to come in to help.
Because of the stretched emergency services, buses, cars and helicopters were used to take the victims to other hospitals in Northern Ireland, including the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry. A Tyrone County Hospital spokesman stated that they treated 108 casualties, 44 of whom had to be transferred to other hospitals. Paul McCormick of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said, "The injuries are horrific, from amputees, to severe head injuries to serious burns, and among them are women and children." The morning after the bombing, a man was killed when his car collided with an ambulance ferrying bomb victims to hospitals in Belfast.
Omagh Leisure Centre was used as a base for relatives and friends of the victims. There they could receive news updates.
Victims
Twenty-nine people were killed, eighteen Catholics (including two Spaniards), ten Protestants and one Mormon. The last victim to die, Seán McGrath, was in critical condition in hospital for three weeks before dying from his injuries on 5 September.
- James Barker, 12, a Buncrana Primary School pupil on a Spanish–Irish language‑exchange trip
- Fernando Blasco Baselga, 12, from Madrid, on the same Buncrana Primary School exchange trip
- Shaun McLaughlin, 12, a Buncrana Primary School pupil on the exchange trip
- Oran Doherty, 8, a Buncrana Primary School pupil on the exchange trip
- Rocio Abad Ramos, 23, from Madrid, supervising the exchange trip
- Geraldine Breslin, 43, a married mother of one and shop assistant at Watterson's drapers
- Ann McCombe, 48, a married mother of two and shop assistant at Watterson's drapers
- Veda Short, 56, a married mother of four and shop assistant at Watterson's drapers
- Debra‑Anne Cartwright, 20, working in a beauty salon
- Gareth Conway, 18, a student
- Breda Devine, 20 months old, out with her mother
- Aiden Gallagher, 21, a self‑employed mechanic shopping with a friend
- Esther Gibson, 36, a Sunday school teacher shopping
- Mary Grimes, 66, a married mother of 12 celebrating her birthday and out shopping with her daughter and granddaughter
- Avril Monaghan, 30, a married mother of four, Mary Grimes's daughter and Maura Monaghan's mother, pregnant with twins
- Maura Monaghan, 20 months old, Avril Monaghan's daughter and Mary Grimes's granddaughter
- Olive Hawkes, 60, a married mother of two out shopping
- Julia Hughes, 21, working in a photography shop for the summer
- Alan Radford, 16, an Omagh High School pupil out shopping with his mother
- Brenda Logue, 17, a high‑school pupil from Carrickmore who was out with her mother and grandmother
- Jolene Marlow, 17, in town with her sister and great aunt
- Samantha McFarland, 17, a Strabane College student and voluntary shop assistant for Oxfam
- Lorraine Wilson, 15, a schoolgirl and Samantha McFarland's best friend also working as a voluntary shop assistant for Oxfam
- Brian McCrory, 54, a married father of three and amateur photographer out to leave in film for developing and collecting a prescription
- Seán McGrath, 61, a married father of four and retired businessman who died three weeks later from his injuries
- Elizabeth "Libbi" Rush, 57, a mother of three and shop and café owner
- Philomena Skelton, 39, a married mother of four out shopping with her husband and three daughters for school uniforms
- Bryan White, 27, shopping with his father
- Fred White, 60, a married father of two shopping with his son Bryan
Reactions
There was a strong regional and international outcry against 'dissident' republicans and in favour of the Northern Ireland peace process. Prime Minister Tony Blair called the bombing an "appalling act of savagery and evil." Queen Elizabeth II expressed her sympathies to the victims' families, while Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III) paid a visit to the town and spoke with the families of some of the victims. Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton also expressed their sympathies. The Spanish Ambassador to Ireland visited some of the injured.
Churches across Northern Ireland called for a national day of mourning. Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh Robin Eames said on BBC Radio that, "From the Church's point of view, all I am concerned about are not political arguments, not political niceties. I am concerned about the torment of ordinary people who don't deserve this."
Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume called the perpetrators of the bombing "undiluted fascists". Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness said, "This appalling act was carried out by those opposed to the peace process," while Gerry Adams said, "I am totally horrified by this action. I condemn it without any equivocation whatsoever." McGuinness mentioned that both Catholics and Protestants alike were injured and killed, saying, "All of them were suffering together. I think all them were asking the question 'Why?', because so many of them had great expectations, great hopes for the future." Sinn Féin as an organisation initially refused to co-operate with the investigation into the attack because the RUC was involved. On 17 May 2007, McGuinness stated that Irish republicans would co-operate with an independent, international investigation if one were created.
The security forces believed the Real IRA were responsible. RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan accused the bombers of deliberately trying to direct civilians towards the bomb.