‘Pleasant, approachable and very moved by the Omagh victims’

By Peter Kelly.

FAMILIES bereaved by the Omagh bomb have spoken warmly of the sympathy shown towards them by Queen Elizabeth.

Michael Gallagher, who lost his 21-year old son, Aiden, in the 1998 attack, recalled the Queen as ‘sincere and concerned’ during meetings with the monarch.

Mr Gallagher said, “Her Majesty was pleasant, approachable and very moved by the Omagh victims.

“She was keenly aware of our loss and expressed support and sympathy throughout.”

The Omagh father revealed that royal recognition for the survivors in the recent aftermath of the atrocity was ‘very meaningful’ for suffering families. During an unscheduled stop in Omagh town centre in May 2002, Queen Elizabeth was introduced to Godfrey and Ann Wilson, who lost their 15-year-old daughter, Lorraine, in the bomb.

DELIGHTED

Mr Wilson, now deceased, described the surprise, but poignant, meeting to TV news crews at the time, saying, “We weren’t expecting to meet her, but I was very delighted.”

Waiting at a formal event later the same day at Loughry College in Cookstown, Mr Gallagher was chosen as a representative of Troubles victims’ of the 1990s, and had an audience with the royal couple. “We were aware of the privilege and honour of meeting the Queen and Prince Philip, and we felt the power of that moment of her reaching out to us,” he said.

“We were also aware of the heavy price we paid for the privilege of meeting the Queen, and would have preferred different circumstances.”

Mr Gallagher was selected to meet Queen Elizabeth at the King’s Hall in Belfast some two years later in recognition of losing his brother in an IRA attack in 1984.