HE WAS JUST GOING FOR A PAIR OF JEANS
He was just going for a pair of jeans'
A DEVASTATED father yesterday 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.
Aidan 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 that was to cost him his life.
He was killed in the blast with 27 others as he shopped for boots and jeans in 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
"Everybody, the wife and I, were looking back and said that it was really nice that in the last few minutes we were all on good terms.
"It probably would have been a lot more difficult if there had been any words.
"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 said.
Aidan 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 had 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 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."
As he waited for news Mr Gallagher said he began to find it harder to cope with the scenes of carnage he was witnessing.
"It was very distressing to look at people, you were starting to look past people because you just couldn't bear to look at their injuries, especially with people with head injuries and things.
"People that were screaming, there seemed to be a lot of pain, a lot of pain, but it just went on and on and on."
By 11pm the distraught father still had no news of whether his son had survived.
"At 11 o'clock you looked out and saw it was dark and you were starting to say why is he not home? Why is he not home?
"You just beared with it and the list of names in the leisure centre were getting shorter and shorter and you just started to have that inevitability that started to set in, that you didn't want to believe, that the worst was coming."
After 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.
"They really had no news and I even felt when I came to the gate I could run and run because I wanted to be here, I really wanted to be here.
"My wife was there and the kids were there and I didn't really have to say anything, they knew, they knew that it was over."
A DEVASTATED father yesterday 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.
Aidan 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 that was to cost him his life.
He was killed in the blast with 27 others as he shopped for boots and jeans in 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
"Everybody, the wife and I, were looking back and said that it was really nice that in the last few minutes we were all on good terms.
"It probably would have been a lot more difficult if there had been any words.
"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 said.
Aidan 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 had 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 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."
As he waited for news Mr Gallagher said he began to find it harder to cope with the scenes of carnage he was witnessing.
"It was very distressing to look at people, you were starting to look past people because you just couldn't bear to look at their injuries, especially with people with head injuries and things.
"People that were screaming, there seemed to be a lot of pain, a lot of pain, but it just went on and on and on."
By 11pm the distraught father still had no news of whether his son had survived.
"At 11 o'clock you looked out and saw it was dark and you were starting to say why is he not home? Why is he not home?
"You just beared with it and the list of names in the leisure centre were getting shorter and shorter and you just started to have that inevitability that started to set in, that you didn't want to believe, that the worst was coming."
After 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.
"They really had no news and I even felt when I came to the gate I could run and run because I wanted to be here, I really wanted to be here.
"My wife was there and the kids were there and I didn't really have to say anything, they knew, they knew that it was over."
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/051
Published Date: 18-Aug-98
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