Omagh

As all of Ireland north and south of the border prepared in June 1998 to vote for peace in the Good Friday referendum, a small group of dissident Provisional IRA members, opposed to the peace agreement, set out to create a bomb outrage so bloody and calamitous that London and Dublin would be driven apart, unionists would withdraw from the peace process and Northern Ireland would be driven back into violent conflict.

They called themselves the Real IRA and selected their target carefully, choosing Omagh, a small market town where Catholics and Protestants had co-existed remarkably peacefully throughout the 30 years of the Troubles.