Family pays tribute to women of three generations killed in Omagh bombing
Family pays tribute to women of three generations killed in Omagh bombing
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Mary Grimes, Avril Monaghan, Maura Monaghan and Avril’s unborn twins died in 1998 attack, inquiry hears. A family from which women of three generations were killed in the Omagh bombing have spoken about the immeasurable pain caused by the atrocity and said they hope no other family suffers as they have.
They were speaking at a public inquiry established to determine whether the attack, the worst in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, could have been prevented. Mary Grimes died in the explosion on her 66th birthday, along with her daughter Avril Monaghan, 30, who was pregnant with twin daughters, and Avril’s 20-month-old daughter Maura. The bomb killed 29 people and injured 220. The inquiry chair, Alan Turnbull, described the impact as an “incomprehensible loss”.
The inquiry was shown photographs of Grimes, her daughter Monaghan and little Maura, who won a “bonnie baby” competition during her short life, as well as ultrasound scan pictures of the unborn twin girls, who had been named Eimear and Evelyn. Mary and her husband had raised 11 children together, building up a large dairy farm. By 1998, Avril and her husband had four children and the twins on the way.
In a recording played to the inquiry, Avril Monaghan’s daughter Aoibheann described Maura as a “source of light and joy to our family and everyone around her”, with a “bubbly personality and unmistakable head of curly hair”. “The Omagh bomb stole our mummy from her loved ones, leaving behind a grieving husband and three of her children, aged only five, four and three, as well as the wide Monaghan and Grimes families,” she said.
