The Irish Independent has reported that the planning approval has been granted for Northern Ireland’s first ever shared campus for Catholics and Protestants. 

Monday’s Boston Marathon bomb blasts have revived painful memories of the 1998 Omagh bomb in Co. Tyrone, a Stormont Assembly member said.

A police informer linked to the Omagh bombings was the victim of a target bomb attack in the Meath town of Navan.

Two families who lost their relatives in the Omagh attack believe their phones may have been hacked by the News of the World, according to the Journal.ie

Read more: Northern Ireland determined that murder will not destabilize peace
 
The message from Omagh to the Dissidents was clear – Give Peace A Chance.

Dissident Republicans have been thwarted in their bid to stage an Omagh-style attack on a border town but may try to strike again.

A newly graduated Northern Irish police officer was murdered outside his home in what is being condemned as a dissident republican bomb attack in Omagh, County Tyrone.

READ MORE- Real IRA bombers found guilty in Omagh bombing civil case

Colm Murphy, the only person who was ever convicted over the 1998 Omagh bombing atrocity, has been cleared for a second time of plotting to cause the attack.

A massive 600lb bomb has been made safe in South Armagh in Northern Ireland.

A massive 600lb bomb has been made safe in South Armagh in Northern Ireland.

READ MORE ]]> http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Ahern-Wont-Apologize-to-Omagh-Victims-3229.html http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Ahern-Wont-Apologize-to-Omagh-Victims-3229.html Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:53:06 PDT By: PADDY CLANCY

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has declined to apologize to relatives of the Omagh bombing victims and has defended an intervention with former Justice Minister Michael McDowell on behalf of the family of jailed Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt. Ahern spoke out this week as Omagh relatives expressed fury when it was revealed he intervened at the instigation of McKevitt's partner, Bernadette Sands McKevitt, when she complained about her husband's loss of privileges in Portlaoise Prison. At the time Ahern was communications minister. He forwarded Sands McKevitt's email to McDowell. Michael Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son Aidan died in the bombing, and who is a spokesman for the victims' families, described the minister's intervention as inappropriate and called on Ahern to resign. Members of the Real IRA are believed to have carried out the bombing in which 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed in August, 1998. Although McKevitt was jailed for 20 years for Real IRA activities he was not accused of being directly linked to the bombing. But he is one of a number of men facing a civil action from the families of those killed in the bombing. Both Ahern and the McKevitt families live near each other in Dundalk, Co. Louth. Ahern said he "regretted" if his intervention upset families torn apart by Real IRA violence, but he didn't apologize. He said he was satisfied he had made the right judgment as he believed in having compassion for families. He added that anybody who knew him in public life knew there was virtually nobody who opposed paramilitary violence more than he had. But he said he also had a duty to respond with compassion to any family who approached him, and he had always done that in a fashion which did not in any way compromise his position. "It would be a dereliction of duty if I was to ignore families when they come to me indicating that, perhaps, there is in some way an infringement of someone's human rights," Ahern said. The representation was made in June, 2004, and the following month McDowell responded that McKevitt had taken part in a jail protest with other dissident prisoners and was subjected to disciplinary measures. Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said Ahern's actions were "ill-judged" as a cabinet minister.

FAMILIES of some Omagh bomb victims are to boycott an official commemoration of the 1998 atrocity in protest at what they feel is a slur on the memories of their loved ones.Twenty nine people and two unborn children were killed when a Real IRA car bomb exploded on Market Street in Omagh town center on August 15 in 1998.It was the single worst atrocity of the Troubles, killing Catholics and Protestants, and men, women and children, including three young boys on holiday from Spain.Throughout the last decade the Omagh families have had to endure a series of crushing blows, with allegations of involvement of informers in the bombing and claims that police on both sides of the border had been given prior warnings of the attack.Police Ombuds-man Nuala O'Loan subsequently raised major concerns about the original RUC investigation of the atrocity. No one has ever been convicted of the bomb.However, efforts to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Omagh bomb have been thrown into turmoil, with some victims families warning that they will not take part in the event.In a series of damaging blows it has now emerged that three victims' families have refused permission for their loved ones' names to be inscribed on a new memorial to commemorate those killed in the massacre.Last week it was revealed that church leaders in the Co. Tyrone town had refused to take part in a commemoration ceremony organized by the Omagh families, choosing instead to take part in a commemoration organized by the town council.Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed in the 1998 bomb, said he was shocked at the clergy's refusal to attend the families' event."Some of these clergy buried our loved ones," he said. "We can't believe they aren't coming."The church leaders later released a statement saying that clergy would attend the families' commemoration but also called on the families to attend the official event.It is understood that up to a dozen Omagh families will not attend the council event in protest at the wording on a memorial erected to mark the 10th anniversary.Kevin Skelton, whose wife, Philomena, was killed in the bombing, said, "There's a whole range of issues I've got problems with."The whole wording issue and some of the politicians that are going to be there. I think the council have made a real mess of it altogether."

The British government is coming under increasing pressure to publicly state whether its intelligence agencies secretly recorded conversations between the Real IRA gang in the hours before they carried out the Omagh atrocity. READ MORE ]]>