IRA Poppy Day Bomb 35th anniversary: Families gather around own memorial for first time

Enniskillen was devastated on November 8 1987 when a Provisional IRA bomb attack turned the annual Remembrance Sunday event into an atrocity. Eleven people were killed and more than 60 others were injured in the blast.

A 12th victim, Ronnie Hill, died from his injuries after 13 years in a coma. Relatives of those killed and members of the public gathered at 10.43am today, the exact time of the explosion on November 8 1987, to remember their loved ones.

The event took place at a newly installed memorial in the town. Enniskillen Memorial Remembrance Group chairwoman Stella Robinson, whose parents Wesley and Bertha Armstrong were killed in the bomb blast, said it is very important that what happened is remembered.

This is the first year that a memorial naming all those murdered has located at the bomb site, something the families fought long for. She said it was important that the public record was now visible for the younger generations of the town to see for themselves what happened.

“My father loved his church, his church came first. My mother was very family-oriented, she was a great mum, like our best friend. We miss them, we really do,” she said. “It’s important for future generations that they see what happened, and learn about what happened, that it won’t happen again.

“It’s a pain we carry with us all the time, and it never goes away.” No-one has ever been convicted over the attack. Relatives of those killed have made a fresh appeal for anyone with information that could help the police investigation to come forward.

A remembrance service is scheduled to take place at Enniskillen Presbyterian Church on Tuesday evening.A minister only months into the job when the exploded near his church said the bombing described the atrocity as a potential turning point on Northern Ireland’s road to peace.

Six of the eleven people killed on November 8, 1987 in the IRA’s infamous Remembrance Sunday attack were members of Reverend David Cupples’ congregation. A 12th victim of the blast, who died years later having never woken from a coma, was also a member of Enniskillen Presbyterian Church.

Thirty five years on from the Poppy Day bombing, Rev Cupples, who is now approaching retirement, has reflected on the day. “I became minister on the 1st of September 1987 and the bomb happened on the 8th of November 1987, my tenth Sunday,” he said. “I had been in all their homes and had begun to get to know them. They were very much the centre of church life.”

The bomb went off as people were gathering at the town’s war memorial for the ceremony. The device was planted in library reading rooms close to the memorial and the walls of the building collapsed on top of those waiting for the service.

Rev Cupples was not at the ceremony as he was making last-minute preparations for his service. The minister said the bomb was an “overwhelming experience” for the town, “My first thoughts are for the families of those who died. Those families have all been on separate journeys.

“When you think of something like that happening and affecting so many different people, you know that there is never going to be one voice or one single way that people deal with that, and while they’re all united in their grief and in wanting to remember their loved ones, they’ve all gone on separate journeys.

“I think of them and pray and wonder where they’ve got to on their journey of dealing with this pain.”Rev Cupples said a service in Enniskillen Presbyterian on the anniversary was organised to provide families with an opportunity to “take another step forward on the road to finding peace and inner healing”.

“On the broader canvas, I think it is the view of many that the Enniskillen bomb exposed maybe more than many other atrocities the futility of violence,” he said. “And it may, when the history books are written, it may prove to have been a turning point on the road to some greater measure of peace and stability.”

Initially the families were told that a memorial garden would be built on the site of the bomb. However, victims told the News Letter that this plan was changed suddenly and without consultation. Instead The Clinton Centre was built on the spot and opened in 2002.

An attempt to mark the atrocity was made with 12 doves being installed above the nearby war memorial. The names of all those killed were added to it. However because the memorial is somewhat like a traffic island, relatives complained that it was impossible to read the names without kneeling down in the midst of oncoming traffic.

Some relatives also objected that their loved ones were not war dead, but rather victims of terrorism. As the 30th anniversary of the bombing approached in 2017, the families unanimously agreed on a large granite memorial naming all the victims and describing what happened to them. They hoped it would be installed in the wall of the Clinton Centre in time for the 30th anniversary ceremony.

However the plans fell into a heated public row when the Catholic Church – which owns the land – claimed that it had only been given three months' notice and that this was not enough to make legal arrangements. The families said they had been in positive talks with the church for 12 months.

After mediation, in 2018 an agreement was reached. This week marks the first anniversary since the bombing where the families were able to gather around their own memorial.