II10An/04

Book reveals final moments of family killed in horror blast
Martina Devlin

TODDLER Maura Monaghan was lifted into her mother's arms and told to wave at the staff who had just served them.
"Bye bye," smiled the pretty child with her mop of curly hair, and everyone beamed at her.
The cheerful little group turned for the door: her grandmother Mary Grimes, celebrating her birthday that day, and Maura's pregnant mother Avril still holding her daughter.
Seconds later all three were dead. Just outside the shop was a car containing 200kg of explosives and a timer - it exploded as they tried to leave.
Theirs were among the 29 lives lost in the Omagh bomb, 10 years ago on Friday.
Also killed were the unborn twins carried by Avril, who had three other young children at home besides 20-month-old Maura. Some 370 people were injured in the Real IRA attack.
SD Kells, the clothing outlet in the town's main street where they had just made a few purchases, took the brunt of the blast.
It was down to the kindness of a stranger that the Grimes family learned of Mary, Avril and Maura's last moments. On the evening following the bomb
Sandra Robinson, who worked in the shop, called to their farmhouse in Beragh and outlined that poignant final scene.
It's one of a number of moving, deeply personal moments shared by Mick Grimes, husband, father and grandfather to those three victims, in 'Till We Meet Again' - a newly published book commemorating the tenth anniversary.
People write books for many different reasons. His motivation was stronger than most: he did it to honour his wife Mary (66) originally from Lismire, Co Cork, lost on that sunny Saturday on August 15,1998.
The 81-year-old widower's memoir covers his lifetime's experience as a farmer in rural Tyrone, and is peppered with anecdotes of an era when children were passed under a donkey to cure them of mumps.
He describes a 'make do and mend' era without central heating or indoor plumbing, when the father of the house would spend evenings patching boots and the mother sewing or knitting - the community spirit of neighbours compensating for any lack of material possessions.
Compelling
But it is the final chapter which forms a compelling conclusion to this charming account of a couple's life over 42 years, raising 11 children and running their dairy farm. In simple, clear terms, Mr Grimes describes the sequence of events which lead to his family's lives being "cruelly torn apart".
Avril and Maura pulled into the farmyard to pick up Mary after lunch for a shopping trip to Omagh. As she put on her coat, Mr Grimes reminded his wife she might need some cash. She ran upstairs for money, said "We are away now, bye" and that was their last encounter.
Later a florist arrived with flowers for her birthday and the driver told him there had been an explosion. Despite frantic efforts, the family could discover no news. As hope faded, they set about contacting relatives in the US, Germany, England and elsewhere in Ireland.
The next day two of Mr Grimes' sons went to the temporary morgue in an army barracks in Omagh to make a formal identification of Avril and Maura. Of Mary Grimes, a handsome black-haired woman who had studied midwifery in Glasgow, there was still no still word. Fingerprint experts called to the house to search for her prints, in the hope of using them to identify her, and after some hours found a match on a vase. Avril, her unborn twins and Maura were buried in the same grave near Augher. The following day Mary was laid to rest in Beragh, with the last loaf of bread she baked on the altar at her funeral service.
The book is available in Eason shops and selected newsagents at €12.50/£10 or online on http://tillwemeeta-gain.synthasite.com.