Grief turns to anger in fire tragedy

THE fire that killed a family of seven in a quiet cul-de-sac in Omagh, Co Tyrone, began as a tragedy but has brought fresh horrors with it as each day unfolds.

As the bodies of Lorraine McGovern, her five children — aged between a few months and 13 years — and partner Arthur McElhill, were removed from the house, mourners were absorbing the news that the blaze had been started deliberately.

Locals had initially thought it was an accident and told of how they rushed to the house, trying to smash windows in a brave bid to rescue the family.

To compound the misery, it later transpired that detectives were investigating the possibility that Arthur McElhill, 39, had started the fire deliberately and that Lorraine McGovern had been five months pregnant.

Omagh was in shock that a tragedy of such proportions could take place, wiping out an entire family.

It emerged yesterday that investigators believe the five children were herded into one bedroom before McElhill doused the upstairs area in petrol.

McElhill was a farm labourer from Fermanagh and a twice-convicted sex offender.

On the night of the fire, neighbours claim they heard raised voices and shouting from the McElhill home, just an hour or so before the blaze took hold.

One witness said he saw McElhill’s body lying alone on the first floor landing of the house.

No one knows what happened in those last moments, but questions were being asked of the social services system in the North.

What role, if any, had they played in the family’s life?

Were they monitoring McElhill who, during the trials of two sex offence cases, told judges he suffered from a psychiatric disorder and a problem with alcohol.

Both incidents involved McElhill sexually assaulting teenage girls.

The last known incident took place in 1998, at a time when McElhill’s oldest daughter was four years old.

Social services refused to comment on what involvement it had with McElhill, but he was placed on the sex offenders’ register.

Such questions, though, were far from the minds of the hundreds of locals who gathered on Thursday to watch the sad procession of mortuary vans remove the seven bodies.

Firemen, many of whom had risked their lives during the blaze, formed a guard of honour and local people wept, barely able to contain their grief.

Friends from St Conor’s primary school — where seven-year-old Sean and four-year-old Bellina had been pupils — wept openly.

The school is just yards from the family home and was closed for most of the week.

Some neighbours described how Arthur McElhill was a car fanatic and had plenty of friends but, they claimed, he could be an overbearing figure and said verbal rows were occasionally heard coming from the house.

Lorraine McGovern was just 16 when she met McElhill, who was then 25, and she became pregnant by him less than a year later.

A friendly woman and a native of Co Cavan, former school teachers said she always looked after the younger children in her primary school.

“She was one of those people who looked after everybody around her, she was always helping people in a very quiet, reserved sort of way,” said Tullyvella school principal Breda Maguire.

Neighbours described how she was never seen without at least one of her children by her side.

Her two youngest were nine-month-old James and 19-month-old Clodagh and the other children “doted on them”, according to friends and neighbours.

For many in the close-knit community, the grief that engulfed them this week began to turn to anger as it emerged McElhill could have murdered his family.

Some neighbours were also aware of McElhill’s dark past as a convicted sex offender. Others claimed that Ms

McGovern’s family were unhappy at the relationship.

The death toll in Omagh means that, so far this year, 12 Irish children — north and south — have died at the hands of suicidal parents.

Disturbingly, what emerged in Omagh was a picture of a family in turmoil and a father with alcohol, psychiatric and sexual problems.

McElhill was one of the first to be placed on the sex offenders’ register in the North, and, given the large family of children under his care, many are asking how much attention was given to the family by the social services.

From the outside, the family may have appeared idyllic but, to those with inside knowledge such as the social services, the reality was very different.

It was claimed the young mother had talked, in the weeks leading up to the fire, of ending her relationship with McElhill.

Many questions remain unanswered and, for now, both families of the deceased couple have asked for privacy to mourn.