HAPPY MINUTES WITH SON WHO NEVER CAME BACK
Happy minutes' with the son who never came back
A DEVASTATED father has remembered the last few "happy minutes" he spent with his 21-year-old son who went on a shopping trip to Omagh and never returned home.
Adrian Gallagher, who had spent the last two years building up his own car repair firm with his father, should have been working but decided to take a day off - a decision which cost him his life.
He was killed in the blast with 27 others as he shopped for boots and jeans in the town's high street.
Speaking from the family home his father Michael recalled the moment he heard the sound of the bomb, knowing something was "terribly wrong."
He said: "He left here that morning and he was just going down for a pair of working boots and a pair of jeans.
"It is lovely to remember those last few minutes that he was standing there, he was just the way you would want him to be," he told ITN.
Adrian was a keen mechanic and had studied car bodywork at Portadown College.
Fighting back tears his father said: "When I heard the explosion I felt that there was something terribly wrong.
"I have heard explosions before and I nad never heard anything like it. It was just a massive, massive bomb - and then the sirens.
"There was a break between the bomb and the sirens and that always tells you something." Mr Gallagher left his wife and family to wait for news at home while he went to the local hospital to try and find his son.
"At the time I went to the hospital there were still a lot of casualties there.
"It really was the worst thing that I am sure that anybody could ever want to see. You know, the thought went through my mind this is like a war, this is like a war zone.
"People were lying about with blankets and some were very seriously injured and they weren't being attended to because there were other people who were probably more serious."
When Mr Gallagher finally identified his son's body he went straight home to his family.
"You could see there had been a lot of preparation that went on but you just felt, I know that I felt, that the minute that it was over I wanted to be here with my family because I knew that they had suffered what I had suffered and I was suffering."
A DEVASTATED father has remembered the last few "happy minutes" he spent with his 21-year-old son who went on a shopping trip to Omagh and never returned home.
Adrian Gallagher, who had spent the last two years building up his own car repair firm with his father, should have been working but decided to take a day off - a decision which cost him his life.
He was killed in the blast with 27 others as he shopped for boots and jeans in the town's high street.
Speaking from the family home his father Michael recalled the moment he heard the sound of the bomb, knowing something was "terribly wrong."
He said: "He left here that morning and he was just going down for a pair of working boots and a pair of jeans.
"It is lovely to remember those last few minutes that he was standing there, he was just the way you would want him to be," he told ITN.
Adrian was a keen mechanic and had studied car bodywork at Portadown College.
Fighting back tears his father said: "When I heard the explosion I felt that there was something terribly wrong.
"I have heard explosions before and I nad never heard anything like it. It was just a massive, massive bomb - and then the sirens.
"There was a break between the bomb and the sirens and that always tells you something." Mr Gallagher left his wife and family to wait for news at home while he went to the local hospital to try and find his son.
"At the time I went to the hospital there were still a lot of casualties there.
"It really was the worst thing that I am sure that anybody could ever want to see. You know, the thought went through my mind this is like a war, this is like a war zone.
"People were lying about with blankets and some were very seriously injured and they weren't being attended to because there were other people who were probably more serious."
When Mr Gallagher finally identified his son's body he went straight home to his family.
"You could see there had been a lot of preparation that went on but you just felt, I know that I felt, that the minute that it was over I wanted to be here with my family because I knew that they had suffered what I had suffered and I was suffering."
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0055
Published Date: 18-Aug-98
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