Buncrana Cup still honouring the memory of Omagh bombing victims

By John Harrington

On this day 27 years ago Omagh was ripped apart by a bomb that killed 29 people and maimed many more.

Tomorrow, family members of many of those who lost their lives will be guests of honour in Buncrana on the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal for the Buncrana Cup Final between Tyrone and Mayo.

This is the 25^th anniversary of the U-16 inter-county Gaelic football development tournament established to commemorate the tragedy which had such a devastating impact on the community of Buncrana.

That day a group of children from the Donegal town travelled to the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh on a bus with Spanish language exchange students.

On the way home they stopped off in Omagh to do some shopping and shortly after their arrival the bomb exploded.

Three young Buncrana boys - Oran Doherty (8), Seán McLaughlin (11) and James Barker (13) - were among the victims, along with young Spanish student Fernando Blasco Baselga (12) and group leader Rocio Abad Ramos (23).

Seán Clerkin was a Garda in Buncrana in 1998, and his memory of that dreadful day and its aftermath is all too crystal clear.

“It was horrible, just horrible,” Clerkin told GAA.ie. “I was working at the station that day when the call came through.

“I was in my office and there was a detective across from me and he told me there was after being a bad bomb in Omagh and there's children from Buncrana down in that area.

“What I remember most clearly was when the coffins were brought back to Buncrana. I went down to Omagh that night and coming back into the town here I'll never forget the quietness.

“There were people all along the road with candles and all you could hear was the sound of the tyres on the stones of the road.

“It was a very, very sad time. James, Seán, and Oran were so young and so innocent. It hit the community hard here for a very long time. It was a tough time for everybody and it never goes away either. The hurt is still there.”

The healing process has been helped somewhat by the annual hosting of the Buncrana Cup which was the brainchild of the then Donegal GAA Youth Officer, Michael McMenamin, who at the time was also involved with the county U-16 Development team along with Martin McHugh and John McConnell.

“We got together and said we'd set up a competition as a commemoration,” says McMenamin.

“The only requirement that we had was that the final would always be played in Buncrana as a tribute to those three young lads that lost their lives.

“It has become a brilliant competition. It's a great standard for county U16s to see where they stand and that's the reason why teams outside of Ulster have now gotten involved.

“There would still be a lot of emotion around it. Especially for those families who were bereaved and the people of Buncrana who would have known these three young lads who went to national school there. A lot of their friends are now adults, of course, and married with their own children.

“It brings back a lot of memories for them all, perhaps all the more now with the Omagh Bomb inquiry. The relatives are reliving all of that trauma all over again. It's been a long, long haul for them and it's still not over for them in terms of the inquiry.”

Sean Clerkin has served all sorts of roles in Buncrana GAA club but one of his staples has been to help out as much as possible with the annual hosting of the Buncrana Cup.

His role this year is to liaise with the families of the Omagh bombing victims who have all been invited to attend, and he’s keenly aware that it’ll be much more than just a day of sport.

“Hopefully we'll have a good day and there will be a good crowd and atmosphere for what should be a great occasion but there will be a bit of sadness there tomorrow too obviously,” says Clerkin.

“It means a lot to our club that we've been able to be a part of all of this, a part of honouring those who lost their lives, and to keep their memory going.

“We will always remember them, we will never forget them. The Buncrana Cup will always honour Omagh."

Saturday, August 16

Buncrana Cup Final

Tyrone v Mayo, The Scarvey, Buncrana, 1.30pm