Woman Searched for Husband and Son for Years Following Omagh Bomb Tragedy

Edith White spoke about her son, Bryan. Bryan never came home after the bombing. She regularly changed his bedsheets, hoping. Bryan was twenty-seven years old. He was in Omagh shopping with his father, Fred, when the bomb exploded.

Hugh Southey read Edith’s statement for the Omagh Bombing Inquiry. The family had just returned from vacation. Fred and Bryan went into town that day. Shortly after they left, Edith heard a loud explosion. She barely remembers what happened after; she learned her husband and son had died.

Edith couldn’t accept their deaths in the years after the bombing. She couldn’t understand the murder and drove around looking for them. She thought they might be somewhere, so she always checked black Ford cars, looking for Fred’s car’s license plate.

She left their things untouched. Toothbrushes and diaries remained untouched for years. She kept changing Bryan’s sheets even though they never came home; the silence remains. She never went to counseling because she didn’t think it would help. They didn’t know Fred or Bryan, and Edith is also a private person.

They were a normal, close family. The three of them had a tight bond and didn’t socialize much. They went on holidays together and kept to themselves. “It wrecks your life,” Edith said. She blocks it out to cope, pretending it didn’t happen, and change is frightening to her.

Time makes blocking it out harder. She sometimes feels intense anger, cries, and then distracts herself. Media reports and government response added to the pain. This occurred in the years following the bombing, and families want answers about their loved ones’ deaths.

Government treatment caused disagreements among the families, she said. Lord Turnbull chairs the Omagh Bombing Inquiry. He hopes the inquiry unites the families, as they all share the same pain – their loved ones were murdered in this tragedy.

A photo showed Fred and Bryan taken the day before the blast on the last day of their holiday. Fred’s daughter, Linda, also made a pre-recorded statement. She said the loss impacted her health, affecting her both mentally and physically.

She has changed aspects of her life because of the atrocity. She said the bomb forced her to relive trauma involving her past pain and loss. Linda read a poem about grief by Donna Ashworth.

The poem stated you don’t lose someone once; you lose them every day for a lifetime.