Even after five years, the blast that rocked Omagh still reverberates through the community

Coping with a nightmare

When the Omagh bomb exploded on August 15 1998, Kevin Skelton was out shopping in the town centre with his wife Philomena for their youngest daughter Shauna's school uniform. Philomena was killed outright in the atrocity that claimed the lives of 28 other innocent people, plus unborn twins, and injured hundreds others, Shauna was also injured. Five years on, the pain of loss of Philomena, a mother of three, is still deeply felt.

According to Kevin: "It doesn't get any easier, you just learn to live with it." "None of our lives will ever be the same again," he said. "At the end of the day, I go to bed alone at night. There is always an empty chair in the house and when you come home and there is no sound, only the ticking of the clock. That's when it is hardest," he said. He admitted there were times when he though about ending it all by putting his 12-bore shotgun under his chin, but was saved by worries about how his children would cope being left alone.
His wife, originally from Ederney Co Fermanagh, was a quiet, reserved family woman whose main focus was on her children Paula, Tracey, Raymond, Shauna and her husband's needs.

"Philomena's whole time was spent on her children. She loved knitting Aran jumpers, and that was all that mattered to her," said Kevin. It has been hard watching his children grow up without their mother.
He recalled the difficulty he had in the early days, waving his eldest daughter off to Stranmills College, where she trained to teach. His youngest daughter is also set to follow the same path.

Loosing their mother turned the Skelton's lives "upside-down", "She would have done everything in the house, to be honest with you. I was lazy. I couldn't even boil an egg for myself," he said. "What makes me bitter is you hear about all these so-called organisations that are supposed to help people like us, but there was no one there to help. "When her remains went out the front door and the door shut, everybody else left, too. There was a great fuss at the time for about four days then we were left to our own devices," he said.
Only close family members remained. Through his horrendous experience, Kevin Skelton said he can understand the feelings of other people were affected by over 30 years of the Troubles.

"The people that did the killing are getting better treatment than those people who lost loves ones," he said.
He still feels bitter about the way the Compensation Agency "dragged out" the issue of compensation to his family for their loss. According to Kevin, the system has failed to offer any compensation to his son Ray, because ho was not in Omagh at the time of the bomb. "There are other families out there in the very same position," he said. "The thing that sticks with me and I'll always remember it, is the smell of burning flesh after the bomb went off. The scenes on the street were unbearable. "I don't know how anybody could do that and go to their beds and sleep at night," he said. He feels angered by the so-called help groups that sprung up after the Omagh bomb.

"Some of these groups have used events in Omagh to get funding. They just want, numbers so they can get more money. We have been used by every group you can think of, but we cant get money for our own group," he said. Kevin is a member of Omagh Self Help and Support Group, "You've got a succession of have been rebuilt, but many still ministers like Angela Smith and Des Browne handing out £5.5million to victims. It goes to groups but not to any of the victims. It's definitely turned into an industry. "It rubs your nose in it when the Omagh fund Money is being put into the new Trauma Centre," he said.

He is bothered by the injustice of a situation whereby bereaved families have been forced to take a private civil case against those allegedly involved in the Real IRA car bomb, yet some are getting legal aid through the British Government, even though they live in the Republic. He is also angered that five years on, no-one has been convicted for carrying out the atrocity. Kevin Skelton believes the reasons are political and grounded in a need to maintain stability. "What we need now is a cross-border public enquiry into the Omagh bomb, and I'd be more interested in what was done beforehand and why the bomb Visions of the day still haunt rescue workers.

The trauma caused by the Omagh bomb has been widespread', and many people are still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. While many have sought help, countless others may be suffering symptoms which remain undiagnosed and untreated. One emergency worker who wished to retain his anonymity shared his story with the News Letter. After the off-duty emergency worker rushed to the scene to attend to the victims on the day of the bomb, he returned to work in the days that followed, taking up his usual rota duties. While the horror of what he had witnessed that day stayed with him, he forged ahead, carrying out duties as normal. But seven months after the atrocity, he was assaulted by a patient. That assault marked a turning point. “That was when it started. In between times I was having flash backs. They say that is how post-traumatic stress disorder starts," he said. Initially, the emergency worker used annual leave days to try to deal with the stress and later took eleven months sick time off work to try to cope "Unfortunately, you are often the last person to recognise that you have it,"he added. "When it hit me, it was very hard. I was suicidal at times. I just wasn't myself, I lost interest in everything, even things I usually enjoy," he said.
"I never left the house for six weeks. I never washed or shaved," he said.

But then the emergency worker learned that someone who is qualified to deal with traumatic stress could help him look at things from a different angle, and see what is needed to help them deal with the images that remain in their memory. “It is the visions, the noise and the smells. The noise was silence, a terrible silence. Even today I can still smell burning flesh, I can still see blood going down the drains," he said. "When it happened, I could see no light at the end of the tunnel. Every day I was going down deeper and deeper. But it was the help from the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma and Transformation that helped me," he said.
This emergency worker said he was also affected by news coverage of Omagh, including coverage of the McKevitt trial. "On the day of the bomb, there was a cul-de-sac and an arcade we used a temporary morgue. I have had to make it my business to go back there and see it as it is today. There are new buildings going up, and things have changed. My vision has been updated. Before it was all the negative stuff, but now there is a new building and the arcade has been been painted.

"We treated the bodies of the dead as if they were living people, we treated them with dignity and respect, that was always on my mind. I remember one victim we carried had very dark shiny hair, it must have been one of the Spanish visitors, and with each step we took a drop of his blood hit my left shoe. I have even had flash-backs to this triggered by an image in a TV oil advert. "Now, with the help of the trauma team I'm looking forward to a brighter future," "I know that in my heart and soul, there is going to be a time when it will hit me again, but with the help I've had, I'm better prepared to cope. I know I will never been 100 per cent OK, but I'm more prepared to seek help, I know now that the help was only a phone call away," he said. The anniversary will affect a lot of people, too, but there are trained professional personnel out there who people can turn to. I just hope everyone gets through it,'' he said.

This emergency worker also applied for compensation through the NIO, only to be told that he was not eligible, because he was not at the scene when the bomb went off. Due to the advice he received, he spent around £1,000 of his own money getting reports from doctors, psychiatrists and solicitors for his application, only to have it rejected by the compensation agency. He says the issue is not simply money, but rather apt and just recognition for those who suffered and whose lives were changed.

Fighting a legal battle for support

Billy Jameson's life has never been the same since the Omagh bomb exploded, injuring his wife and son.
Five years on, the stress, injury and trauma haunt his life and that of his family today. Five years on, his legal battle to gain compensation continues with the Compensation Agency. He is angered by the agency's policy that compensation is not given to people who were not on the scene and within 300 metres of the explosion.
"I was a finance broker, and now I'm a full-time carer bringing in £52per week, yet they say I wasn’t involved, "This Government has spent £38 million this year on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, yet we, the victims of Omagh, are not worth spending money on," he said. His wife Ursula, a college lecturer, has not been able to return to work since the bomb because of injuries to her legs and arms. Billy sums up the past five years as one which has been a "battle with officialdom". He is angered by the way funding has been granted to victims' groups. He said even the Omagh Self Help and Support Group can no longer get funding to sustain its work. He stressed that while the Community Relations Council had initially granted funding to set the group up, it had specified that certain amounts be spent on consultancy and another specific portion on promotional material.

In his book, officials would rather give money to consultancy firms than to victims on the ground. He believes the distribution of victim's funding has created an industry for some people, but he is certain that much-needed money is not actually filtering down to the victims and their families. While vast amounts of money has been spent on the new Community House in Omagh on the back of victims issues, he claims that many victims will not benefit from it because they do not go to that area of town. Since the day of the bomb, many local people have never set foot hi Market Street, because of fear and trauma. Even the Omagh Self Help and Support Group operates with no faculties. "I call it the old nissan hut," he said.

The old prefab office on loan from the Sperrin Lakeland Trust has no toilet, no beating and nowhere to make a cup of tea. That is how the group who are taking the biggest ground-breaking civil legal action in the history of the troubles, has operated over the past five years. This strident campaigner is also critical of Omagh District Council for tailing to offer to pot flowers at the town's Garden of Remembrance. "They go around putting flowers everywhere else in the town, but they never asked about the memorial garden. I couldn't even even tell you who deals with community relations in Omagh Council, because we see so little of them,” he said.

Last memorial ceremony for five years

A solemn cross community ceremony in honour of the memory of those who died in the Omagh bomb will once again cast a veil of reflective silence over Omagh. A lunchtime civic wreath-laying procession is also expected to take place at the peaceful Garden of Remembrance. It is understood this year's ceremony will be the last public service until the 10th anniversary. Rev Robert Herron, Omagh Churches Forum, said details for this year's service are still being finalised and families are consulting on how loved ones should be remembered. Since the actual anniversary falls on a Friday, a day of reflection is also being planned for Sunday, focusing on shared personal memories and experiences and moving towards the future.

Rev Kevin Mullan, Omagh Churches Forum, said the conversation is expected to touch on the "nature of suffering and trying to move on, to remember while looking forward." He said the organisers were very sensitive to the fact that individual pain does not stop. The Forum had taken its lead in making the fifth anniversary the last remembrance, from the experience of other communities. News Letter August 14th 2003 pages 26 and 27