OMAGH DIVIDED

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Aug 17, 2008 | by VICTORIA McMAHON

TEN families of the Omagh bomb atrocity will today hold their own service to remember their loved ones 10 years on.

The run-up to the official commemoration service, held on Friday, was dogged by controversy after the break-away families announced they would be snubbing the council-run event.

Many relatives were left fuming over the way Omagh District Council organised the event and decided to boycott it.

They were furious at how the council handled the contentious issue of the wording for new memorials erected at the bomb site on the town's Market Street and at a nearby garden of remembrance.

The relatives, the majority of whom belong to the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, opted to hold their own memorial service to remember their relatives killed in Northern Ireland's most bloody bombing.

Members of the support group had demanded keeping the phrase engraved on an original tribute stone, which has since been removed from the garden of remembrance, stating that the victims were "murdered by a dissident republican terrorist car bomb".

In the days leading up to the Friday's service the break-away group suffered another blow when some members of the local clergy, who had buried their loved ones rules out attending today's service. In a joint statement they said they had decided to go only to the official service.

However, they later had a change of heart and it is now understood a local priest and minister will be among those attending today's memorial service.

Kevin Skelton refused to attend Friday's memorial service and instead will be remembering his wife Philomena who lost her life in the Real IRA's 1998 attack, today .

"There's a whole range of issues I've got problems with," he said.

"The whole wording issue and some of the politicians that where there - I think they've have made a real mess of it altogether."