As part of her Golden Jubilee tour of Northern Ireland, the Queen has visited Omagh, the small County Tyrone town which was the scene of the 1998 Real IRA bomb that killed 29 people and injured 300.
During the Tuesday visit, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh inspected the site of the bombing and met Godfrey and Ann Wilson, a local couple whose 15-year-old daughter Lorraine was killed in the blast. The couple had been waiting in the crowd to catch a glimpse of the Queen.
“I just came to see you; I didn’t expect to meet you,” said Mr Wilson, apologizing for the fact that he was wearing an anorak and no tie. “That’s quite all right,” replied the Queen, listening sympathetically as they told her of their loss.
The monarch's meeting with the Wilsons was part of a last-minute change to the royal program that narrowly avoided a controversy over the Omagh visit: originally Queen Elizabeth was only scheduled to visit the town’s library – not the site of the tragedy.
“Omagh is a backwater. It is famous for only one thing and it’s not the library,” said Michael Gallagher, who lost his son Adrian in the blast and is chairman of the bomb victims’ support group.
Details of the 35-minute visit, released just two hours before it was due to take place, provoked a flurry of heated phone calls between the Northern Ireland Office and Buckingham Palace, and in a “last-minute decision” it was announced that the Queen would inspect the site of the blast and drive slowly past the garden of remembrance, as well as meet the family of one of the victims.
“I think it’s a personal tribute and very respectful of the people of Omagh and the victims,” said Mr Wilson later of the swiftly modified visit. “But the situation was changed at the last minute. This should have been in place from the beginning.”
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid indicates the site of the 1998 blast to Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh
