Family describes ‘enormous' pain after losing father in Omagh blast

Independent

06-02-2025

The three children of Sean McGrath have paid tribute to their father as a 'considerate' man and successful businessman at the public inquiry into the Omagh bombing.
They said it was painful to recall how their father died, saying it is 'too emotional to examine' and a wound that may never heal.
Mr McGrath, 61, was a local businessman and grandfather who died of his injuries on September 5 1998, almost three weeks after the Omagh bombing.
He was one of five siblings who lived above the family grocery business on Market Street in Omagh.
His son Conor told the inquiry in a statement that his father's positive outlook and sociability meant he was 'a natural salesman' and he went on to work for large companies before opening his own bakery in Omagh.
His bakery expanded to supply local hotels with fresh bread and he employed 30 people at one stage.
' One of his triumphs in the early 80s was making a deal with Harrods in London to supply a selection of traditional Irish breads, as he noticed they had breads from all over the world, but nothing from Ireland.'
Conor McGrath said that his father gave some people 'a lot more chances than normal' but that 'no-one had a bad word to say' about him.
The Society of St Vincent de Paul branch in the town was among the local charities he donated to, which benefited from any surplus baked goods he had at the end of the week.
He was out shopping on the day of the Omagh bomb, which went off on the street where he was born.
Conor McGrath's mother Nuala found his father 'among what can only be described as carnage in the hospital' at Omagh after the blast.
Mr McGrath was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, where the family were told despite chest and leg wounds, he was expected to survive.
Conor McGrath described what followed as 'a traumatic three weeks of hope being constantly shattered' as medical tests 'threw up complications'.
'I also had to collect dad's car from the car park behind Market Street. It had his shopping in it, which is when I realised that he'd gone back across the street to see if his barber, Leo Doran, was open.
'We know he was closed that day for his daughter Lisa's wedding, a godsend for them.'
In a statement read out to the inquiry on her behalf, Mr McGrath's daughter Noleen said her father was 'considerate, gentle, kind to a fault'.
She said he was 'slow to anger and the only real thing that made him cross was injustice of any form'.
'If my dad had a superpower, he would have been the protector. He protected my mother from difficult situations, my siblings and I from anything that was not happy and joyful, and would have been horrified to know we spent three weeks in a horrible limbo at the hospital, wondering if he would pull through despite his horrific injuries.
'He couldn't protect us from that hideous time. When my dad died, although it was a sort of relief, the light definitely went out for a long time. However, remembering the best of him has rekindled the light.'
His son Gavin and daughter-in-law Emma were expecting their first child on the same week the bomb exploded, and Mr McGrath had planned to travel to London that week to visit them.
Their daughter Polly was born on August 18.
'Polly's first trip from our home in England to my home town in Omagh was to go to her grandpa's funeral,' Gavin McGrath said in a statement read out by his wife Emma.
A video was played at the inquiry of Mr McGrath playing with his granddaughter Sarah at her second birthday in April, just four months before the bomb blast.
Conor McGrath said the aftermath of the blast was 'as surreal as it was devastating' and that the family suffered from PTSD for a long time.
'It still hurts to talk about Sean's death – murder – which is why I avoid the issue. Every anniversary just picks at the scar, maybe not as raw now, but still not healed, and I doubt it ever will.
'This process has been difficult to confront, but necessary to tell you about the father I knew – always positive, faithful, hard-working, warm-hearted, and very much missed by all who knew him well.'
Gavin McGrath said the impact on their family and been 'too emotional to examine'.
'I feel that unless they've absolutely had to, our family have metaphorically looked the other way in respect of how my father has died, as talking about that horrendous day and the aftermath is simply too enormous to discuss.
'If we don't open the wounds, we can't feel the pain. It's not what is recommended by the experts, but it is literally the only way we can all deal with it.'