I AM NOT HELD BACK BY BITTERNESS BUT I DO WANT JUSTICE
I am not held back by bitterness, but I do want justice' - Mother of 'wee angel'
"He was a wee angel but a loveable rogue. He always had the older girls laughing about something... He would come into the kitchen dancing like Michael Flatley...
"There was a big gash on his forehead and bruises on his cheek and burns on his wee fingers. His bottom lip was out over his top lip. I thought he might have ben crying when he died and that haunted me for ages."
Those were Bernie Doherty's memories of her beloved son, Oran, before and after he was taken away from her at the age of eight by the 1998 Omagh bomb.
For years after his death she would gaze for hours on the sleeping form of her younger son, Oisin, who looked so like Oran 'from the back of his head when he was sleeping'.
The family have kept a packet of brandy balls in a jar in the house - found alongside two half eaten packets of honeycomb in a football bag Oran took to Omagh on Saturday, August 15, 1998, as part of a day trip of Spanish exchange students and local boys from Buncrana, including his cousin, Emmet.
While Emmet - now 18-years-old - has long since stopped talking about the day's events, Bernie and her family have gleaned snippets of the fun he had that day at the Ulster American Folk Park -such as Oran dipping his fingers in a 'magic' well to heal warts on his fingers, or the boys tucking into chicken and ice cream for lunch.
She said that, while still unwilling to go to Belfast at that time, she was not overly worried about Oran making the day trip to the North as 'it was supposed to be peace'.
Bernie first heard of the explosion 20 minutes after the bomb went off. She said she knew something had happened to Oran as her nephews rushed in to tell her the news, which they had come across as they searched Teletext for football results.
The next 16-and a-half hours were an agonising waiting game, as Bernie moved between the phone in her nearby sister's house and her own Knockalla Drive home waiting for news that Oran was safe.
In the hours after the bomb, a crowd of anxious relatives and neighbours began sitting out in the streets of Knockalla Drive, waiting for news of Oran, his friend and neighbour Sean McLaughlin (12) and James Barker (12). At 5.30pm they were told all the children were "safe on the bus and would be home late", but a bus arrived in Buncrana later that night with just 16 Spanish students.
A surgeon contacted Bernie's sister to say her son, Emmet, was being treated at the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen while relatives of another Buncrana schoolboy, Ruairi, set out for the Tyrone County Hospital, where he was being treated amid the hundreds of other casualties. Bernie's husband, Mickey, was one of those who made the trip to Omagh with his brother, while Bernie stayed at home waiting for news.
A local Guard, who asked to speak with her in the company of the family doctor, in her house, told her Oran and Sean McLaughlin were those still missing later that evening.
"Later that night Mickey rang and said, 'Don't worry, I'll bring the wee fella home' and I said, 'You better'.
"At about 7 o'clock (7am on Sunday, August 16) I was looking up and I saw Sean McLaughlin's family hugging outside and I thought something might have happened. My sister came in and said: 'Wee Sean's dead'. Just at that moment the phone rang and Mickey said 'Did you hear the news?' and I said yes, I knew Sean was dead, and he said: 'Well, Oran's dead too'.
"I threw the phone away from me, and that's how I found out Oran was dead.
"He was taken from the street at 7.30pm on Saturday evening. He was dead even before we knew anything about the bomb. My worst fear, that he was scared. I met a woman later who said she had seen the group of them standing in the street before the bomb, and they were laughing and didn't look scared. That was a comfort. I just wanted to know that he had died quickly and I have been told he did.
"I went up on the Sunday night to the makeshift mortuary in the [Lisanelly] army barracks. I remember the cold place,
it was so horrible. It haunts me yet, when I'm feeling down, to think of Oran lying up there all on his own.
"There was a big gash on his forehead and bruises on his cheek and burns on his wee fingers. His bottom lip was out over his top lip. I thought he might have been crying when he died and that haunted me for ages. When I think back I don't know how I got through it."
While her memories are vague about Sunday, August 16, and the following Monday, harrowing scenes at Omagh's Chapel of Rest, where some of the bodies were laid, have stayed with her.
"It looked like the whole of Buncrana was up there," she said, "which was awful. Everywhere you looked people were squealing and wailing.
This was overshadowed, however, by the comforting and moving scenes the Doherty family, and those of Sean McLaughlin and James Barker, met with as they drove through Strabane and Derry, on their homeward trip with Oran's body to Buncrana.
"We were coming down the road after the three hearses. We got as far as Strabane and people were out holding candles, and more and more as we got nearer to Derry and Buncrana. I always remember that feeling that people came out so late at night. It was very moving. It was a big comfort.
"We got to Buncrana and James Barker's family took a different direction and we went on towards Knockalla. As the two hearses came up the hill for Knockalla people came out in their hundreds."
Ten years on and there is not a day that passes without Oran's name being mentioned in the family home.
Alongside the tremendous support she received from her father and siblings, she said the family's ability to talk openly about Oran over the last 10 years has enabled her to 'cope', even through the sometimes painful questions her youngest children - who tragically never met Oran -have asked about him over the last 10 years.
Just last week, her son Cillian, born over a year after Oran's death and christened Cillian Oran, told her of his wish that he could have seen Oran. Yet he has often said he feels like he knows his older brother from stories family members have relayed about him over the years.
"At the time I believed I could never be happy again. I have laughed and I have been happy, but I will never know real happiness."
She continues to draw support from talking, without interruption, about her experiences with other bereaved mothers, who have lost their children through various circumstances.
"I heard about a woman some years ago who had lost her son accidentally and I went up to her house to talk to her. We started a sort of support group and there are seven of us now. It's the missing that's the hardest thing of all. I also went to the WAVE centre in Derry and to storytelling workshops, which I found helpful."
She stressed that while she does not harbour any bitterness, she wants justice and supports the families currently pursuing the ongoing civil action.
"I am not held back by bitterness and my life is going on, but I do want justice. I definitely want justice. I would love to have anyone who had anything to do with the Omagh bomb brought to justice."
As well as attending a candlelight vigil to be held in Knockalla Drive in memory of Oran, Sean McLaughlin and James Barker, Mrs Doherty will be attending a remembrance service - organised by Omagh District Council - in the new Memorial Garden, and a service to be held on Sunday, organised by the families of the victims.
While stressing that she does support those families who have decided not to attend Friday's memorial service, she said her decision was a personal one.
She said: "I am going on the Friday because it is the 10th anniversary of Oran's death. The week leading up the Omagh anniversary I always feel a bit down. I just want to be there in Omagh that day. I draw comfort from those services, and I meet people I wouldn't meet very often and we can talk about Oran. Me and my family are not going to stand alongside any politician. We are just going to be there for Oran on that day."
"He was a wee angel but a loveable rogue. He always had the older girls laughing about something... He would come into the kitchen dancing like Michael Flatley...
"There was a big gash on his forehead and bruises on his cheek and burns on his wee fingers. His bottom lip was out over his top lip. I thought he might have ben crying when he died and that haunted me for ages."
Those were Bernie Doherty's memories of her beloved son, Oran, before and after he was taken away from her at the age of eight by the 1998 Omagh bomb.
For years after his death she would gaze for hours on the sleeping form of her younger son, Oisin, who looked so like Oran 'from the back of his head when he was sleeping'.
The family have kept a packet of brandy balls in a jar in the house - found alongside two half eaten packets of honeycomb in a football bag Oran took to Omagh on Saturday, August 15, 1998, as part of a day trip of Spanish exchange students and local boys from Buncrana, including his cousin, Emmet.
While Emmet - now 18-years-old - has long since stopped talking about the day's events, Bernie and her family have gleaned snippets of the fun he had that day at the Ulster American Folk Park -such as Oran dipping his fingers in a 'magic' well to heal warts on his fingers, or the boys tucking into chicken and ice cream for lunch.
She said that, while still unwilling to go to Belfast at that time, she was not overly worried about Oran making the day trip to the North as 'it was supposed to be peace'.
Bernie first heard of the explosion 20 minutes after the bomb went off. She said she knew something had happened to Oran as her nephews rushed in to tell her the news, which they had come across as they searched Teletext for football results.
The next 16-and a-half hours were an agonising waiting game, as Bernie moved between the phone in her nearby sister's house and her own Knockalla Drive home waiting for news that Oran was safe.
In the hours after the bomb, a crowd of anxious relatives and neighbours began sitting out in the streets of Knockalla Drive, waiting for news of Oran, his friend and neighbour Sean McLaughlin (12) and James Barker (12). At 5.30pm they were told all the children were "safe on the bus and would be home late", but a bus arrived in Buncrana later that night with just 16 Spanish students.
A surgeon contacted Bernie's sister to say her son, Emmet, was being treated at the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen while relatives of another Buncrana schoolboy, Ruairi, set out for the Tyrone County Hospital, where he was being treated amid the hundreds of other casualties. Bernie's husband, Mickey, was one of those who made the trip to Omagh with his brother, while Bernie stayed at home waiting for news.
A local Guard, who asked to speak with her in the company of the family doctor, in her house, told her Oran and Sean McLaughlin were those still missing later that evening.
"Later that night Mickey rang and said, 'Don't worry, I'll bring the wee fella home' and I said, 'You better'.
"At about 7 o'clock (7am on Sunday, August 16) I was looking up and I saw Sean McLaughlin's family hugging outside and I thought something might have happened. My sister came in and said: 'Wee Sean's dead'. Just at that moment the phone rang and Mickey said 'Did you hear the news?' and I said yes, I knew Sean was dead, and he said: 'Well, Oran's dead too'.
"I threw the phone away from me, and that's how I found out Oran was dead.
"He was taken from the street at 7.30pm on Saturday evening. He was dead even before we knew anything about the bomb. My worst fear, that he was scared. I met a woman later who said she had seen the group of them standing in the street before the bomb, and they were laughing and didn't look scared. That was a comfort. I just wanted to know that he had died quickly and I have been told he did.
"I went up on the Sunday night to the makeshift mortuary in the [Lisanelly] army barracks. I remember the cold place,
it was so horrible. It haunts me yet, when I'm feeling down, to think of Oran lying up there all on his own.
"There was a big gash on his forehead and bruises on his cheek and burns on his wee fingers. His bottom lip was out over his top lip. I thought he might have been crying when he died and that haunted me for ages. When I think back I don't know how I got through it."
While her memories are vague about Sunday, August 16, and the following Monday, harrowing scenes at Omagh's Chapel of Rest, where some of the bodies were laid, have stayed with her.
"It looked like the whole of Buncrana was up there," she said, "which was awful. Everywhere you looked people were squealing and wailing.
This was overshadowed, however, by the comforting and moving scenes the Doherty family, and those of Sean McLaughlin and James Barker, met with as they drove through Strabane and Derry, on their homeward trip with Oran's body to Buncrana.
"We were coming down the road after the three hearses. We got as far as Strabane and people were out holding candles, and more and more as we got nearer to Derry and Buncrana. I always remember that feeling that people came out so late at night. It was very moving. It was a big comfort.
"We got to Buncrana and James Barker's family took a different direction and we went on towards Knockalla. As the two hearses came up the hill for Knockalla people came out in their hundreds."
Ten years on and there is not a day that passes without Oran's name being mentioned in the family home.
Alongside the tremendous support she received from her father and siblings, she said the family's ability to talk openly about Oran over the last 10 years has enabled her to 'cope', even through the sometimes painful questions her youngest children - who tragically never met Oran -have asked about him over the last 10 years.
Just last week, her son Cillian, born over a year after Oran's death and christened Cillian Oran, told her of his wish that he could have seen Oran. Yet he has often said he feels like he knows his older brother from stories family members have relayed about him over the years.
"At the time I believed I could never be happy again. I have laughed and I have been happy, but I will never know real happiness."
She continues to draw support from talking, without interruption, about her experiences with other bereaved mothers, who have lost their children through various circumstances.
"I heard about a woman some years ago who had lost her son accidentally and I went up to her house to talk to her. We started a sort of support group and there are seven of us now. It's the missing that's the hardest thing of all. I also went to the WAVE centre in Derry and to storytelling workshops, which I found helpful."
She stressed that while she does not harbour any bitterness, she wants justice and supports the families currently pursuing the ongoing civil action.
"I am not held back by bitterness and my life is going on, but I do want justice. I definitely want justice. I would love to have anyone who had anything to do with the Omagh bomb brought to justice."
As well as attending a candlelight vigil to be held in Knockalla Drive in memory of Oran, Sean McLaughlin and James Barker, Mrs Doherty will be attending a remembrance service - organised by Omagh District Council - in the new Memorial Garden, and a service to be held on Sunday, organised by the families of the victims.
While stressing that she does support those families who have decided not to attend Friday's memorial service, she said her decision was a personal one.
She said: "I am going on the Friday because it is the 10th anniversary of Oran's death. The week leading up the Omagh anniversary I always feel a bit down. I just want to be there in Omagh that day. I draw comfort from those services, and I meet people I wouldn't meet very often and we can talk about Oran. Me and my family are not going to stand alongside any politician. We are just going to be there for Oran on that day."
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC10An/39
Published Date: 14-Aug-08
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