Timeline of a tragedy — how the horror unfolded
Thursday, August 13, 1998 – A red Vauxhall Cavalier car, reg 91 DL 2554, is stolen in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan.
Saturday, August 15, 2pm – The same car, now bearing the fake reg MDZ 5211, is driven into Market Street, Omagh, and parked outside SD Kells clothes shop. Two men are seen walking away.
2.30pm – A man phones the UTV newsroom with a bomb warning: “There’s a bomb, courthouse, Omagh, main street, 500lb, explosion 30 minutes.” Two further bomb warnings were phoned through, one to the Samaritans and the other to UTV.
2.31-3.10pm – UTV and Samaritans both place emergency calls to the Royal Ulster Constabulary control centre, and officers begin evacuating Omagh town centre.
3.10pm – A 500lb bomb packed in the Cavalier is detonated with a remote trigger. The explosion tears through Market Street. Shop fronts on both sides are blown back on top of customers inside and a fireball sweeps out from the blast. Twenty-one people are killed instantly, some of their bodies never found, such is the force of the blast. More than 300 are injured. In total, the blast claims 29 lives and two unborn twins.
3.10pm – Emergency operation begins. The two ambulance crews on call at the nearby Tyrone County Hospital arrive within minutes. Survivors are already tending to the injured and covering the dead. Buses are commandeered to help take the injured to hospital, off-duty medical personnel report for duty. Army helicopters are scrambled to help the ambulance service. Omagh’s leisure centre is transformed into an incident centre, with hundreds of relatives gathering there, awaiting news of loved ones. A temporary morgue is set up in a nearby Army base.
Sunday, August 16, 12.45pm – RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan addresses the world’s press at the scene, condemning the “slaughter” and the inaccurate bomb warning. Significantly, Sinn Fein figures such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness also condemn the attack.
Tuesday, August 18 – The Real IRA admits responsibility.
August 15, 2001 – A report by the Police Ombudsman finds that the RUC Special Branch failed to act on prior warnings and slammed the RUC’s investigation of the bombing.
January 23, 2002 – Colm Murphy, from Ravensdale, Co Louth, is found guilty by the Dublin special criminal court of conspiracy to cause the Omagh bombing. He was the only person convicted in connection with the explosion and was jailed for 14 years. In 2010, he was acquitted of involvement.
April 7, 2008 – The families of some of the victims begin a landmark civil case, suing five men they claim were involved.
June 8, 2009 – The judge in the civil trial rules that Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly were all liable for the Omagh bomb. He orders them to pay a total of £1.6m damages to 12 relatives who took the case. A fifth man, Seamus McKenna, is cleared of liability.
April 10, 2014 – Daly is charged with the murders of 29 people in the Omagh bombing, but on March 1, 2016, the case against him collapses. He always denied any involvement.
August, 2017 – Relatives of Omagh bomb victims sue PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton for investigative failings they believe let the killers escape justice.
July 3, 2018 – A legal challenge to the government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry into the Omagh bombing is pushed back to 2019. Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden died in the attack, is taking legal action against former Northern Ireland Secretary of State Theresa Villiers. The case was due to be heard at the High Court in Belfast. Proceedings were adjourned to February 2019 after issues of national security were raised in a closed session.