Omagh bomb memorials ‘should end with 20th anniversary’
Organisers have said that the annual routine of public memorials to the Omagh bomb tragedy should end after this year’s 20th anniversary.
Every August, victims’ relatives and friends and the wider community gather at a memorial in the Co Tyrone town to remember the lives lost in the 1998 Real IRA car bomb.
While they will continue to remember the horrific events of that day, the bereaved have said now is the time to call a halt to formal commemorations.
The Omagh Support and Self-Help Group said: “The 20th anniversary is a milestone for those closely affected as well as the wider community who were moved by this horrific event.
“There is a sense that this point in time offers an opportunity to start to dissolve and disperse the routine of the memorial.”
Organisers say future memorial events may only be held at intervals, such as on a 25th or 30th anniversary.
They added: “The intention of this phase associated with the 20th anniversary is to allow creative processes to bring transitional steps beyond the existing format of the annual anniversary services, so that remembering in the future will not be formalised and therefore private.”
This year’s events to mark the 20th anniversary are being given a cash injection from the Irish government worth £16,000 to help pay for remembrance works of art and music.
Cat Wilkinson, whose 21-year-old brother Aiden Gallagher died in the explosion, said she was grateful for the extra money.
“It will help the families who will be thinking and reflecting back over the last 20 years,” she said.
“It gives them something to focus positively on and really connect with the rest of the community.”
Bags of wildflower seeds will be decorated with paintings and words themed around Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney’s line: “Believe that a farther shore is reachable from here.”
They will be put together as an installation by artist Carole Kane - in a throwback to events of the time, when floral works made from masses of wreaths received from around the world were presented to the bereaved families.
At the anniversary event, the bags of seeds will be distributed for scattering later, in some cases around the world at the scene of other atrocities.
A newly-composed music piece will also be performed by Omagh Community Youth Choir.
Omagh District Council is also organising a series of memorial events.
The Omagh bombing inflicted the greatest loss of life of any terror atrocity in the history of the Northern Ireland Troubles and came just months after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
The 29 victims came from both sides of the Irish border, England and Spain, and one was a woman pregnant with twins.