Buncrana remembers

Moving tribute to young bomb victims by John Gill john@inishtimes.com The skies over Buncrana wept on Friday night last as the town remembered its young victims of the Omagh bombing in 1998. Three local schoolboys, Oran Doherty (8), Sean McLaughlin (12) and James Barker, along with Spanish visitors to the town, Rocio Abad Ramos and Fernando Baselga, were among the 29 killed in the atrocity.Around a thousand people gathered in the rain close to the Knockalla Drive homes of young Oran Doherty and Sean McLaughlin for a special memorial service.There were emotional scenes throughout the ceremony as the families paid personal tributes to their sons.Celebrant, Fr. Eddie McGuinness, said the large attendance was proof that those who died would never be forgotten.“The very fact you are here tonight is testimony to the fact that you have not forgotten and that those who have died are still living largely in your minds,” he said.Church of Ireland Canon Sean Barton made an appeal to those still considering violence to follow another path.“The message should ring out to those who still think that violence works, a very clear message must go out from Buncrana, from Omagh, from all of us to say – enough is enough. We have to ring that message out loud and clear because at the end of the day the people who suffer most are the poor, the children and the innocent.”Mothers, Patricia McLaughlin and Bernie Doherty, carried pictures of their sons to the altar as gifts during the ceremony. Other gifts included a bag of sweets bought by Oran and a watch worn by Sean during their visit to Omagh on that fateful day.The Prayers of the Faithful included the reading of the poem, “The Bridge,” composed by Sean McLaughlin shortly before the tragedy.As darkness began to fall a candle-lit procession saw candles carried to the altar representing each of the victims before a moving recital by local youth club leader PJ Hallinan of the poem “Our Brief Rainbow.”