A month on, how has Creeslough coped with unimaginable tragedy?

Devastating blast that claimed 10 lives has changed the tight-knit Donegal village forever

The 10 victims of the tragedy (top row l-r) Leona Harper, 14, Robert Garwe, 50, Shauna Flanagan Garwe, five, Jessica Gallagher, 24, and James O'Flaherty, 48, and (bottom row, l-r) Martina Martin, 49, Hugh Kelly, 59, Catherine O'Donnell, 39, her 13-year-old son James Monaghan, and Martin McGill, 49.

Up until a week ago, the last time the people of Creeslough lined their narrow Main Street was in silence as hearses passed.

Last Sunday week, October 30, they came out for a much-needed change of occasion.

It was the arrival back to the Donegal village of their victorious St Michael’s GAA club's under-13 side.

Rows of people lining the street had clapped and cheered them back after their coach had pulled up, and later brought the cup door-to-door to show it to people.

The side had defeated Glenties club Naomh Conaill at the Donegal GAA Centre in Convoy about 40 km away in the under-13 Division 2 Cup final, which had started with a minute’s silence.

It was the first underage triumph for St Michael’s since their Under-16 Division 2 title win in 2016.

As the club chairperson Liam McElhinney said after last Sunday week’s win, it was “a great lift” after the recent weeks the club and the village have had.

St Michael’s manager Paul Sweeney would later describe the game as “a little bit of distraction”.

The demolition of the Applegreen site after the tragedy. Picture: Joe Dunne

The two teams had been due to meet the very weekend that tragedy struck the nearby supermarket and Applegreen filling station, on Friday, October 7, killing 10 and seriously injuring eight others.

After they returned victorious, they made their way to the Garda barrier at the scene of the explosion.

There they stood in their red and black tracksuits, their heads bowed in silence for a minute, the street still wet from a recent rain shower as the evening drew in.

Among the boys standing in that line were a number who are related to some of the victims.

Others were friends and would have either gone to school with some of them or would have known of them in what is a very close-knit village.

One month on from that devastating blast, local parish priest Fr John Joe Duffy is in no doubt about how the community is coping.

“It is still very sad and the whole community, everybody, is just shocked and numb,” he said.

Everybody is still really trying to come to terms with what happened.

“We are all on a journey in life and the families are learning to take steps on that journey.

“The bereaved all have somebody who's missing, and I think they are all struggling to understand the enormity of what happened.

“It’s the beginning of learning to cope.

“It’s not a question of getting over this, just learning to cope with the anguish, the heartache and the loss.” 

As his church became a focus for everyone’s grief — not least because so many funerals were held there — he is in no doubt about whether or not the tragedy has led those left bereaved to question their own faith.

“People have very much relied on their faith,” he said.

A member of An Garda Síochána lays flowers at the scene.

“It has been a huge comfort. Added to that, this is a very close-knit community with faith.

“One of the families has told me that, however tragic the events, they are very glad that they are going through it with this particular community because of the support they have been getting.” 

He had been unable to attend Sunday’s game as he was doing baptisms that weekend.

Where his St Michael’s Church had only a few weeks ago seen so many funerals over such a short space of time, it had had three baptisms the weekend of St Michael’s win.

Fr Duffy said: “One of those baptisms had been postponed.

“It was great to have them and to see the community gather for the baptisms.

“Baptism is a time of great joy.

“It's the celebration of new life and I always love doing baptisms because there's a great sense of joy and love.” 

He pauses as he collects his thoughts, his voice cracking slightly.

A vigil at Market Square, Letterkenny, following the explosion at Applegreen service station in Creeslough last month. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

The priest, who became one of the most familiar representatives of the shattered community, says he has availed of the counselling services so quickly offered to Creeslough residents after the blast by the HSE.

Fr Duffy, who officiated at six of the eight funerals for the 10 victims, said: “I did take up the offer because I felt I needed it.

“I made sure people knew that I did because I wanted other people to feel OK about asking for help too.” 

Before the game last Sunday week, the priest — who is very obviously a well-respected and well-liked pillar in his local community — had brought children playing up to the altar during the various masses on the day.

“I had a wee chat with them at the altar and then I went out to wish them well, before they headed off for the match,” he said.

A time of healing

“I was doing the baptisms so I couldn't get to the match, but the match was a great lift for our community.

“That great lift is part of the process of healing too.

Father John Joe Duffy: 'It's not about getting over this, it's learning to cope with the heartache and loss. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

“Healing in a community like ours is a multi-faceted thing.

“It comes through what we offer as a church, with what the HSE offers, with what the soccer club, the youth club, the dance classes, and the GAA club offer.

“It’s about members of the community talking together or at least doing things together.

“Never has an Under-13 team county championship game been so important.

“They are all important, of course, but this one was very, very important.” 

He added: “As we are trying to deal with the shock and the sadness of loss and the shock of what has happened to our community, here were young boys of the U-13s going out to play a game of football and county championship.

“And we were just happy to see the smiles on their faces and to just see that determination and to see that resilience that was within that little team.

It gives us inspiration and helps us as a community to take steps on a journey of healing.

As James O’Flaherty was walking through the doorway of the nearby supermarket at the Applegreen filling station on that fateful Friday, October 7, his son Hamish was waiting for him in the back seat of his car.

The 12-year-old was sitting in the back of the Australian-born engineer’s Volvo parked on the forecourt.

Seconds were slowly ticking towards 3.18pm as he walked towards his car on what was a lovely, sunny day.

At the same time, Hamish was leaning forward to pick up something he had dropped.

All of a sudden there was, what another survivor would later describe as, “a deep bass sound”.

The windscreen and windows of his father’s car instantly shattered and shot glass splinters in all directions over his down-turned head.

Choking dust and soot filled the car.

By the time the stunned schoolboy, his ears ringing, raised his head, and peered out to see an everyday ordinary filling station forecourt suddenly transformed into a scene of utter carnage, his father was nowhere to be seen.

In his place were piles of rubble, smoke and dust-covered people stumbling about, some bleeding, others falling.

Lighting candles for those whose lives were lost.

The schoolboy escaped with little more than a minor cut to one of his hands, but sadly, his father had died almost instantly just feet from the car.

Elsewhere in the carnage and unknown to Hamish at the time, there were another nine people dead or dying around him.

They included 24-year-old fashion designer Jessica Gallagher, whose boyfriend Conor McFadden was renting a flat above the Nearby shop and who remains in a critical condition in a Dublin hospital.

One man, who was 20ft from the doors of the supermarket when the explosion happened, would later tell how he ran into the shop, and could hear the sound of people crying under the rubble.

High-altitude mountaineer Jason Black, who has climbed Everest, told how he called out to those he heard crying and reassured them that he was there, and urged them to hold on as the emergency services were on the way.

Firefighters leave the scene of the explosion at Applegreen service station in Creeslough.

One of those people was his cousin, Martina Martin.

The 49-year-old mother-of-four, one of the 10 to die in that blast, had been working at the shop.

In the instant of the blast, others in the shop included Leona Harper.

The 14-year-old had been choosing an ice cream with a friend she was due to have a sleepover with when the explosion happened.

She would be the last victim to be recovered from the site, a full 24 hours after the blast.

A digger driver helping at the scene had refused to leave until he was able to locate her body.

In the hours before she was found, her mother Donna and father Hugh had been told she might have actually been evacuated to Letterkenny Hospital in an ambulance.

Both clung to that hope, until the moment they realised their “gem” of a daughter never made it out of that filling station alive.

Volunteers hand out food and drinks to members of the emergency services. Picture: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

A little girl would later be found in the arms of her 50-year-old father Robert.

As would later emerge, five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe had gone to the shop to buy a cake for her mother’s birthday.

At her funeral, parish priest Fr John Joe Duffy would later recount how she was so keen to go to primary school that on her way to her local nursery school near her home in the Donegal village, she used to wave at teachers and children in their playground as she passed and even used to ask if she could come in and play.

She eventually started at Scoil Mhuire Creeslough just a few weeks before she died.

Hughie Kelly, the 59-year-old farmer who had driven the pair of them to the filling station, was also among those who died in the blast.

Catherine O’Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan were in the post office when they were struck by the blast.

The 39-year-old was there to collect her mother’s pension.

Also helping their mother was Martin McGill.

The 49-year-old, who was his mother's sole carer, was on one of his usual daily trips to the shop for messages when he was killed in the blast.

The match programme at the Derry GAA Senior Club Football Championship Final. Picture: ©INPHO/Evan Logan

Hamish O’Flaherty’s strength during his father James’s funeral is something few who witnessed and heard it will ever forget.

Just before the end of Fr Brian Ó Fearraigh’s service at St Mary’s Church in Derrybeg, the 12-year-old paid tribute to his father.

He amusingly pointed out that James — who often walked around with a paint-stained jacket — “had no shame” before adding that that is a “great thing to not have”.

Then he paused and leaned forward slightly, saying: “I'd also like to say something which I have learned in the past week or so.

“I'd like to say that we should be grateful for your families, cherish them.

“Be grateful because they won't be there forever.

“So use up the time you have wisely.

“Also be grateful for your life because that too will not last forever.

“But be grateful, for you're able to rest after your hard work.”