Final family testimonies for this week to heard at inquiry today

Families of three more victims of the Omagh bombing will today get the chance to tell their story at the inquiry into the atrocity.

The current stage of the Omagh Bombing Inquiry involves testimonies from relatives and friends of those killed in the 1998 Real IRA attack.

Thirty one people, including unborn twins, were killed when a huge car bomb exploded at Market Street in Omagh on August 15, 1998.

The victims remembered today during the inquiry at the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh will be Samantha McFarland, Elizabeth Rush and Sean McGrath.

Seventeen-year-old Samantha was killed alongside her friend Lorraine Wilson whilst working as a voluntary shop assistant for the charity Oxfam.

She was a former pupil at Omagh High School and was studying for her A-levels at Strabane College.

Her mother took on her voluntary work at the Oxfam shop after her death as a tribute to her.

Elizabeth, a mother of three, owned a shop with a cafe upstairs in Omagh and she died while she was serving customers.

The 57 year old was described by her parish priest as “a caring person, always friendly”.

She and her husband Laurence had married as teenagers and after her death he condemned the perpetrators of the attack: “They haven’t just destroyed my wife, they have destroyed my life.”

Three weeks after the explosion, Sean McGrath died of his wounds in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

He had been caught up in the blast that happened on the same street that he was born on 61 years earlier.

The retired baker and married father of four was described by one friend as “one of the loveliest men ever to walk the streets of Omagh”.

Today’s family testimonies will be the final ones for this week and the inquiry will resume on Monday.