PRESIDENT HELPS EASE THE AGONY
President helps ease the agony
By IAN STARRETT
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's emotion-filled meeting with the Omagh victims' grieving relatives will help the healing process, the mother of fatally injured Foyle and Londonderry College pupil James Barker said yesterday.
Donna Maria Barker spoke about what the historic day meant to her as she joined other still mourning relatives and bomb survivors who left Buncrana, Co Donegal, to travel to Omagh leisure centre during the morning.
The families of the three Buncrana dead and survivors had been invited to travel, by special coach, to the Co Tyrone town because Mr Clinton was unable to fit a flying visit to the North West resort into his tightly packed Northern Ireland schedule.
James Barker, Sean McLaughlin and Oran Doherty, with a Spanish youth leader and a Spanish child, were all killed in last month's bombing after they had gone together on a bus trip to watch a carnival parade in Omagh.
Mrs Barker said yesterday that the grieving for her family is getting harder every day.
She said that as well as going to meet the US President they all went back together to Omagh yesterday to see the spot where the children died. Mrs Barker said that her own family had returned to Omagh last week to collect a few items belonging to 12-year-old James and to see a photograph, taken by one of the Spanish students, that had been retrieved from the wreckage.
"Unfortunately, James wasn't in the photograph," she said.
Mrs Barker, who with her husband, Victor, had brought their family back from England to live in Buncrana to give them a better quality of life, said that the Clinton visit gave the families more hope and that she too shared his message of peace.
Emrnett McLaughlin, eight, who was injured in the bombing, also travelled to Omagh to meet, the President. The soccer-crazy Buncrana schoolboy is still suffering from severe burns to the hands. His father, Patrick, said that meeting Mr Clinton lifted the spirits of all of the families.
By IAN STARRETT
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's emotion-filled meeting with the Omagh victims' grieving relatives will help the healing process, the mother of fatally injured Foyle and Londonderry College pupil James Barker said yesterday.
Donna Maria Barker spoke about what the historic day meant to her as she joined other still mourning relatives and bomb survivors who left Buncrana, Co Donegal, to travel to Omagh leisure centre during the morning.
The families of the three Buncrana dead and survivors had been invited to travel, by special coach, to the Co Tyrone town because Mr Clinton was unable to fit a flying visit to the North West resort into his tightly packed Northern Ireland schedule.
James Barker, Sean McLaughlin and Oran Doherty, with a Spanish youth leader and a Spanish child, were all killed in last month's bombing after they had gone together on a bus trip to watch a carnival parade in Omagh.
Mrs Barker said yesterday that the grieving for her family is getting harder every day.
She said that as well as going to meet the US President they all went back together to Omagh yesterday to see the spot where the children died. Mrs Barker said that her own family had returned to Omagh last week to collect a few items belonging to 12-year-old James and to see a photograph, taken by one of the Spanish students, that had been retrieved from the wreckage.
"Unfortunately, James wasn't in the photograph," she said.
Mrs Barker, who with her husband, Victor, had brought their family back from England to live in Buncrana to give them a better quality of life, said that the Clinton visit gave the families more hope and that she too shared his message of peace.
Emrnett McLaughlin, eight, who was injured in the bombing, also travelled to Omagh to meet, the President. The soccer-crazy Buncrana schoolboy is still suffering from severe burns to the hands. His father, Patrick, said that meeting Mr Clinton lifted the spirits of all of the families.
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/273
Published Date: 04-Sep-98
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