Omagh Bombing Inquiry: Eight-year-old 'real character' Oran Doherty wanted to play for Celtic F.C.

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The mother of an eight-year-old Buncrana boy killed in the Omagh Bombing has told how the pain her family has had to endure has been ‘unbearable’.

A statement from Bernie Doherty, the mother of Oran Doherty, was read by her daughter and Oran’s sister Lisa Dillon at the Omagh Bombing Inquiry on Monday.

Bernie, who sat alongside Lisa as she read the statement of commemoration for Oran, told how the family was ‘so happy’ when they heard the Good Friday Agreement had been signed the previous April.

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“Oran had asked me what the Agreement meant and I told him it meant there would be no more shootings or bombings in the North.

The late Oran Doherty.The late Oran Doherty.
The late Oran Doherty.

“Four months later, Oran, who was only eight years old, was blown up in the Omagh bomb.”

Oran, she outlined, was the fifth child of seven.

“He was fun-loving, happy-go-lucky and he loved football. He also loved to go fishing with his daddy, his older brother and his friends. He had written one time that when he grew up he wanted to play for Celtic or be a shopkeeper.”

Oran was on a student trip from Buncrana to Omagh, which took place as part of an exchange with Spanish students.

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A section of the huge crowds at St Mary's Church, Cockhill, in attendance of the boys' funeral.A section of the huge crowds at St Mary's Church, Cockhill, in attendance of the boys' funeral.
A section of the huge crowds at St Mary's Church, Cockhill, in attendance of the boys' funeral.

“He was eight years old, full of life and full of fun, just a great funny wee boy and a real character.”

Bernie said she initially was unsure about Oran going on the trip to the Ulster American Folk Park and Omagh due to his age.

“However, I continued to tell him that I would think about it. In the end, I told him he could go, and on the Friday night he came in and he said to me, ‘you'd better shake me hard in the morning’."

In the morning, Bernie said, she thought about letting Oran lie on, but thought it wouldn’t be fair on him. So she woke him and he ‘jumped up’.

The last time Bernie saw her son was when he was heading down to the bus with others at the local school.

Around 3.30pm, her two nephews told her they had been checking Teletext for football results when they saw there had been a bomb in Omagh.

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“One of the boys said to me: ‘That's where our boys will be now’, and I ran down the road to my sister's house to see it for myself.”

They had heard that a girl from Buncrana, who was on the trip, had phoned her mother.

"So when her mother told me that, I thought the police would have them all in a safe place. However, as time went on, we knew for certain that they were in Omagh at that time.”

As the evening went on, they still had no news on Oran and were ‘trying to get through to Omagh,’

“The next message we got was that they were all safe and on their way home on the bus. However, shortly after we heard that this wasn't correct.”

After getting word that the bus that left Buncrana that morning would be returning to the town at 9pm, Bernie went down to see if Oran was there, but he was not.

“We went down there at 9.00 to meet the bus but the driver told us that there was only 16 Spanish students on the bus and that the rest were missing.”

Bernie’s husband and Shaun McLaughlin’s father travelled to Omagh, while she ‘waited by the phone’ in her sister’s house.

A police woman then arrived and told her that Oran was missing, following which she was ‘hysterical’.

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Bernie’s husband, Mickey, also rang and told her they were waiting at the Leisure Centre in Omagh, but there was still no word.

“He was saying, ‘Don't worry, I'll find our wee man, I'll bring him home’. But as the night went on and on there was still no word and we were starting to fear the worst.”

The following morning, Bernie was told that Sean McLaughlin had died.

"At that moment the phone rang and it was my husband who asked me if I had heard the news. I said that I had heard about Shaun being dead, and it was then that he told me Oran was dead too. I just threw the phone. It was your worst nightmare come true.”

Bernie told the Inquiry they didn’t see Oran until the Sunday and on Monday, ‘it seemed the most of Buncrana came to Omagh to the Chapel of Rest to see the three bodies of Oran, Shaun and James Barker’.

“It was terrible, the sight of those three coffins side by side.”

Bernie explained how, on the way home to Buncrana, people were standing outside with candles and it was ‘incredibly moving’.

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On arrival in Buncrana, ‘the streets were thick with men, women and children holding a candle.’

"I could see old friends just standing there screaming and crying. I was numb, just numb.”

The Prime Minister, politicians from Catholic and Pprotestant communities, came to the house and funeral, during which ‘the church was packed out’.

Bernie said that at different times, ‘for example Oran's birthday, or Christmas, I get very angry at the thought of the people who did this’.

"To lose your own child is very hard, but I will always have thought to myself what if something like this happened to my other children, and that's why I feel that the people who did this should have been brought to justice. I used to pray for God to keep the children safe. Every day a wee prayer in my head to keep them safe from harm. However, after Omagh, I can't seem to pray.”

The family, said Bernie, ‘always talk about Oran’.

“There is hardly a day that goes by without him being mentioned in my house.”

Her children, she added, could not comprehend his death.

"I used to watch Oran's friends outside and I just would go up to my bed, lay down and cry. All of Oran's friends are grown up now and have gone on to live their lives, and I can't help but wonder what Oran would be doing now as a 35-year-old man.

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"Would he have settled down and had a family of his own? Would he have played football for the local club? What job would he be in? These are all questions that I will never get answers for, and unfortunately I will still ask these questions until I take my final breath.”

Bernie told the Inquiry how Oran had brought some sweets from the folk park before he went to Omagh and a ‘wee jar of honeycomb that he had eaten one bit but then wrapped it up again’.

“This is how he left it on the bus when he got out. We got that back, his wee jar of sweets, and we still have them 26 years later. He should have come back that evening with them, but he didn't.”

Bernie said her family has lost ‘a lot’ of family members since Oran died and ‘it absolutely pains me to think that they have left this earth knowing that we have not been able to get justice for Oran’.

"Are they able to rest in peace knowing that nobody will ever be brought to justice for what they have done that day?

"As for those people responsible, I do wonder if they can sleep in their beds at night given the absolute carnage and devastation they caused for so many families with one act of cruelty.

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“I have listened to and read all the excuses about the fact they didn't mean to let the bomb go off at the time and in the place, and they didn't expect anyone to be in the area at the time. I do not accept this, and I never will. If you are prepared to transport a bomb of that magnitude into a crowded market town, then you know exactly what could happen. It was a despicable act inflicted upon people of all ages and from both sides of the political divide, and all in the name of what? The Good Friday Agreement had been signed a matter of months earlier and people on this island finally had some hope of a peaceful future until these cowards literally blew it all away. The fact that the Omagh bomb was more or less at the end of troubles doesn't make it any easier for the families of the innocent civilians who would have to pay the ultimate price.”

Bernie said she hopes and prays that the Inquiry ‘can at least give us some answers as to what exactly happened, what people knew and if the disaster could have been prevented’.

“Whilst it would not bring our Oran back, and nothing will ever come close to that or make life any easier without him, it might give us some comfort as we move on with the remainder of our time on this earth.

"As for the perpetrators, I think far too much time has been allowed to pass for us to get a chance to see them get what they deserved. If they are out there and listening, I want them to know they will never be forgiven what for what they have done to my wee boy and for the hurt and pain they have caused my family and so many others.”

She added: “To my darling son, Oran, I look forward to the day when I will see you again, but for now Mummy will continue to do her best to look after your brothers and sisters and all your wee nieces and nephews whom I know would have loved their uncle so much.”

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