TC/1424

April

In April, hundreds turned up for the wedding of Donna Marie Keyes and Gary McGillion who were badly injured in the Omagh bombing. The congregation remembered Breda Devine, who died in the blast aged 21 months and who should have been a flower girl at the wedding.
Security Minister Adam Ingram revealed that total compensation to be paid as a result of the bomb was likely to amount to around £17 million.

Thieves stole and damaged a car belonging to Stanley McCombe who lost his wife in the Omagh bomb.

Tyrone groups received a total of £590,000 funding from the National Lottery Charities Board, £850,000 of which went to counselling service, the Tara Centre in Campsie, which treats people traumatised by the August 15 bomb.

Plans were reaching completion for the reconstruction of the area of Market Street destroyed in the Real IRA bomb, Omagh District Council announced. Planning permission had been sought for commercial development with a "community house" to offer solace.

And, last but not least, the Tyrone Constitution was named weekly newspaper of the year in the IPR-BT Northern Ireland press and broadcast awards for 1998. The newspaper was praised for its "well-researched and dignified coverage" of the Omagh bomb and its aftermath.