Victims’ families, survivors and dignitaries will gather on Sunday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Omagh bombing, the deadliest attack in the period of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as the “Troubles”.
On 15 August, 1998, a massive car bomb planted by dissident republicans tore through Omagh’s busy town centre killing 29 people and injuring 220.
The memorial service, organised by victims’ groups and the town’s churches forum, will be held in Omagh Memorial Garden on Sunday. A separate, private service will be held for families on 15 August.
The blast took place four months after the signing of peace accords aimed at ending three decades of conflict over British rule in Northern Ireland that claimed 3,000 lives.
Perpetrated by the Real IRA, a dissident republican group opposed to the peace deal, the attack rallied the public around the Good Friday Agreement struck between pro-UK Unionists and pro-Ireland Nationalists.
Earlier this year, the UK government announced an independent inquiry into the Omagh bomb to probe whether the attack could have been prevented.
The inquiry follows a 2021 judge recommendation for the government to investigate alleged security failures in the lead-up to the attack.
Victims’ families and survivors of the blast have faced years of legal wrangling over the bombing through a series of inquests, criminal and civil cases and appeals, but nobody has ever been convicted for the atrocity.
In February, senior police officer John Caldwell was shot in an assassination attempt by dissident republicans on the outskirts of Omagh.
The attack, which was later claimed by the New IRA, recalled the routine targeting of police officers during the Troubles.
The last police officer murdered by dissident republicans, Ronan Kerr, was killed in Omagh in 2011 when a car bomb exploded outside his home.
The UK government in March raised the Northern Ireland terror threat level in response to Caldwell’s shooting, citing a continuing threat of political violence.
Tensions have run high in Northern Ireland since the UK’s departure from the European Union, with the province’s largest pro-UK party collapsing its power-sharing institutions over post-Brexit trading rules.