UNBREAKABLE OMAGH LINKS ARE A PRIVILEGE
Unbreakable Omagh links are a 'privilege' - Spanish exchange co-ordinator
by Stephen McKiernan
Paula Helguero Mahon journeyed from Madrid to Omagh last week to participate in the 10th anniversary service commemorating the events of August 15 - the first time she has done so since the 1998 bomb atrocity.
She still runs the company which organised the exchange programme that brought 32 Spanish students to Buncrana in the summer of 1998 - but heartbreakingly only brought 30 home.
Along with acting Spanish ambassador to London, Javier Carbajosa, Paula made her first visit back to Omagh last week since the aftermath of the bombing - although she never missed a summer exchange trip to Buncrana in the interim.
"I have been doing this for 20 years now, the year of the Omagh bombing was our 10th summer," said Paula.
"We had 32 students that year and all 32 were in Omagh that day."
Fernando Blasco Baselga, a student, and Rocio Abad Ramos, a group leader, died alongside three host children from Buncrana - Oran Doherty, James Barker and Sean McLaughlin - who had travelled with her group from the Donegal village for a summer shopping trip.
A number of the Spanish group also sustained serious injury, and Paula cites their unwavering faith as the main reason they managed to cope with the tragedy.
"Actually, that very night I decided to come back again. When I saw the response of everybody and even at the service today (Friday), the only way to overcome evil is by good.
"When you see the human response and you see everybody getting together, I decided that we are not going to be affected by this and that we would be back, and we have been coming back since."
Although Paula has passed through Omagh on many occasions since the bomb, offering a prayer on her way through from Dublin to Buncrana, she has never stopped - until now.
Paula assisted in the initial police investigation, and indeed the photograph of the car carrying the bomb - which featured on newsreels around the world - was taken by Rocio Abad Ramos.
The male in the picture, holding a child on his shoulders, was also a group leader who was badly injured but survived.
"I had to go to the scene in the days afterwards, it was very hard but I went along because it helped with the investigation. Every other year, I have never stopped in Omagh. But I'm happy to be here today. I must say I'm glad I came and will be coming back now".
"The memories are very vivid in one sense - some of the things you cannot forget. How you are meeting people today who I only saw that night, but my overall remembrance was we had to account for the people, the students who we had, where they were, and which hospitals they had been sent to. Who had major or fatal wounds?
"The hardest was to have to come to the truth that we had to recognise two people that had died. And yet once we had found them, we were lucky that people who were there had strong faith, we were able to accept what was happening and chose to fight to make a better future and we made that decision at that moment."
She continued: "I must say, and will speak for the others and what I have learned from the Abads and the Blascos, who from the very moment they were told, have tried to make a positive out of what happened that night."
Noting that bombings in Madrid, her home, have made her relive the horror of Omagh, she emphasised that seeing the "evil and the atrocity and the bombings and the destruction and the burns and the wounds, it makes you want to make life worth living".
Paula recognises that the full impact of the Omagh atrocity took some time to sink in.
"It really hit me maybe a year after," she said. "At the time I was quite strong, I was expecting my fourth child, this is my number five".
Paula points to her energetic daughter, Lucia, blissfully unaware of the media attention her mother has generated.
"She was born the following January and then I could relax that February myself."
Paula received a bad knee injury in the blast, but refused medical help in the months after due to guilt: "I didn't take any painkillers, or anything, to go through the suffering, because I felt I had caused so many people to suffer.
"So I actually had to go to counselling for a year afterwards because I felt very guilty. I thought it had been my fault because I had decided to bring these students here. We were just unlucky to be in the wrong place. It wasn't my fault it was whoever planted the bomb. It was hard."
She also noted the support the injured and bereaved families received through the Omagh Fund, and the constant contact from Ireland.
Paula admitted that at times she did not think people would continue the summer programme from Madrid to Buncrana, particularly the parents of prospective exchange children.
"I actually thought nobody would want to come with me. There were, of course, people who would ask if we were going back to the north, and, for a few years, we would try to avoid the north. But because of this pledge I made myself, to come back, I knew it would be impossible to stop this feeling.
"We are a small company, so all the people who were involved with the bomb were my family. My niece, my sister's daughter was badly injured and in a coma but I saw so many good things in the people and I knew it wouldn't stop me coming back. We put a lot of effort into this, in trying to help the students learn, and it is good now that more people are coming. My organisation has grown all over, not only in Ireland now, and all this started in Buncrana."
Both Rocio Abad Ramas' and Fernando Blasco Baselga's families, she says, remembered the anniversary in different ways, with the Abads travelling to Omagh while the Blascos remained at home in Madrid.
"It would be a family thing," admitted Paula. "The Abads are here and the Blascos were asked and they have been on television. I am very good friends with the parents and they have had a family thing. It was very low key, there was nothing officially organised."
Paula stressed there was no animosity from the Spanish public to Omagh, or the country as a whole, over the deaths of two of its citizens, and pointed to a shared common bond that has been strengthened in the long-run.
"We suffer ourselves, we have the same. There's no animosity. I know for instance the Blascos have brought their children back to Ireland, not with me, but I'm friends with them. But no animosity because they have seen so much Ireland has done and how they have stretched out and they [local authorities] have gone a few times over to Madrid. They couldn't have done any more."
Noting that her own family was badly affected by the blast, she said: "My niece was brought by helicopter to Royal Victoria Hospital and she was in Belfast for one month and a half. Her birthday was here in hospital, on the 23rd of August she was 13 - she's now 23 years of age.
"There was my cousin, who was the leader, and two nieces and one nephew. My nephew and niece were badly injured but they have all recovered and those who were badly injured have healed very well and got on with their lives."
Indeed the intriguing life stories of the numerous Spanish teenagers who were seriously injured are forever a boost to Paula's spirit.
One of the Spanish girls, who lost an eye in the blast, still keeps in contact with Claire Bowes (nee Gallagher), with whom she shared a hospital ward. That girl is now a doctor. Her brother, whose legs were seriously injured, is now a successful architect and enjoys playing basketball.
However, one of the most joyous occasions for the Spanish contingent during the intervening years was the marriage of two of the group leaders -both of whom were badly injured in the bomb - and the subsequent birth of their first child.
"They fell in love after the Omagh bombing because they were in hospital together," Paula added, "so it's a lot of stories and good hope.
"Myself personally, with all the host families and all the people in Omagh, I have made very good links that would be unbreakable now. That's the thing that for me has been a privilege really."
by Stephen McKiernan
Paula Helguero Mahon journeyed from Madrid to Omagh last week to participate in the 10th anniversary service commemorating the events of August 15 - the first time she has done so since the 1998 bomb atrocity.
She still runs the company which organised the exchange programme that brought 32 Spanish students to Buncrana in the summer of 1998 - but heartbreakingly only brought 30 home.
Along with acting Spanish ambassador to London, Javier Carbajosa, Paula made her first visit back to Omagh last week since the aftermath of the bombing - although she never missed a summer exchange trip to Buncrana in the interim.
"I have been doing this for 20 years now, the year of the Omagh bombing was our 10th summer," said Paula.
"We had 32 students that year and all 32 were in Omagh that day."
Fernando Blasco Baselga, a student, and Rocio Abad Ramos, a group leader, died alongside three host children from Buncrana - Oran Doherty, James Barker and Sean McLaughlin - who had travelled with her group from the Donegal village for a summer shopping trip.
A number of the Spanish group also sustained serious injury, and Paula cites their unwavering faith as the main reason they managed to cope with the tragedy.
"Actually, that very night I decided to come back again. When I saw the response of everybody and even at the service today (Friday), the only way to overcome evil is by good.
"When you see the human response and you see everybody getting together, I decided that we are not going to be affected by this and that we would be back, and we have been coming back since."
Although Paula has passed through Omagh on many occasions since the bomb, offering a prayer on her way through from Dublin to Buncrana, she has never stopped - until now.
Paula assisted in the initial police investigation, and indeed the photograph of the car carrying the bomb - which featured on newsreels around the world - was taken by Rocio Abad Ramos.
The male in the picture, holding a child on his shoulders, was also a group leader who was badly injured but survived.
"I had to go to the scene in the days afterwards, it was very hard but I went along because it helped with the investigation. Every other year, I have never stopped in Omagh. But I'm happy to be here today. I must say I'm glad I came and will be coming back now".
"The memories are very vivid in one sense - some of the things you cannot forget. How you are meeting people today who I only saw that night, but my overall remembrance was we had to account for the people, the students who we had, where they were, and which hospitals they had been sent to. Who had major or fatal wounds?
"The hardest was to have to come to the truth that we had to recognise two people that had died. And yet once we had found them, we were lucky that people who were there had strong faith, we were able to accept what was happening and chose to fight to make a better future and we made that decision at that moment."
She continued: "I must say, and will speak for the others and what I have learned from the Abads and the Blascos, who from the very moment they were told, have tried to make a positive out of what happened that night."
Noting that bombings in Madrid, her home, have made her relive the horror of Omagh, she emphasised that seeing the "evil and the atrocity and the bombings and the destruction and the burns and the wounds, it makes you want to make life worth living".
Paula recognises that the full impact of the Omagh atrocity took some time to sink in.
"It really hit me maybe a year after," she said. "At the time I was quite strong, I was expecting my fourth child, this is my number five".
Paula points to her energetic daughter, Lucia, blissfully unaware of the media attention her mother has generated.
"She was born the following January and then I could relax that February myself."
Paula received a bad knee injury in the blast, but refused medical help in the months after due to guilt: "I didn't take any painkillers, or anything, to go through the suffering, because I felt I had caused so many people to suffer.
"So I actually had to go to counselling for a year afterwards because I felt very guilty. I thought it had been my fault because I had decided to bring these students here. We were just unlucky to be in the wrong place. It wasn't my fault it was whoever planted the bomb. It was hard."
She also noted the support the injured and bereaved families received through the Omagh Fund, and the constant contact from Ireland.
Paula admitted that at times she did not think people would continue the summer programme from Madrid to Buncrana, particularly the parents of prospective exchange children.
"I actually thought nobody would want to come with me. There were, of course, people who would ask if we were going back to the north, and, for a few years, we would try to avoid the north. But because of this pledge I made myself, to come back, I knew it would be impossible to stop this feeling.
"We are a small company, so all the people who were involved with the bomb were my family. My niece, my sister's daughter was badly injured and in a coma but I saw so many good things in the people and I knew it wouldn't stop me coming back. We put a lot of effort into this, in trying to help the students learn, and it is good now that more people are coming. My organisation has grown all over, not only in Ireland now, and all this started in Buncrana."
Both Rocio Abad Ramas' and Fernando Blasco Baselga's families, she says, remembered the anniversary in different ways, with the Abads travelling to Omagh while the Blascos remained at home in Madrid.
"It would be a family thing," admitted Paula. "The Abads are here and the Blascos were asked and they have been on television. I am very good friends with the parents and they have had a family thing. It was very low key, there was nothing officially organised."
Paula stressed there was no animosity from the Spanish public to Omagh, or the country as a whole, over the deaths of two of its citizens, and pointed to a shared common bond that has been strengthened in the long-run.
"We suffer ourselves, we have the same. There's no animosity. I know for instance the Blascos have brought their children back to Ireland, not with me, but I'm friends with them. But no animosity because they have seen so much Ireland has done and how they have stretched out and they [local authorities] have gone a few times over to Madrid. They couldn't have done any more."
Noting that her own family was badly affected by the blast, she said: "My niece was brought by helicopter to Royal Victoria Hospital and she was in Belfast for one month and a half. Her birthday was here in hospital, on the 23rd of August she was 13 - she's now 23 years of age.
"There was my cousin, who was the leader, and two nieces and one nephew. My nephew and niece were badly injured but they have all recovered and those who were badly injured have healed very well and got on with their lives."
Indeed the intriguing life stories of the numerous Spanish teenagers who were seriously injured are forever a boost to Paula's spirit.
One of the Spanish girls, who lost an eye in the blast, still keeps in contact with Claire Bowes (nee Gallagher), with whom she shared a hospital ward. That girl is now a doctor. Her brother, whose legs were seriously injured, is now a successful architect and enjoys playing basketball.
However, one of the most joyous occasions for the Spanish contingent during the intervening years was the marriage of two of the group leaders -both of whom were badly injured in the bomb - and the subsequent birth of their first child.
"They fell in love after the Omagh bombing because they were in hospital together," Paula added, "so it's a lot of stories and good hope.
"Myself personally, with all the host families and all the people in Omagh, I have made very good links that would be unbreakable now. That's the thing that for me has been a privilege really."
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC10An/57
Published Date: 21-Aug-08
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