Coordinates: 54°36′0″N 7°17′52″W / 54.6°N 7.29778°W / 54.6; -7.29778

The Omagh bombing was a car bomb attack carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), a splinter group of former Provisional Irish Republican Army members opposed to the Good Friday Agreement, on Saturday 15 August 1998, in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Twenty-nine people died as a result of the attack and approximately 220 people were injured. The attack was described by the BBC as "Northern Ireland's worst single terrorist atrocity" and by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as an "appalling act of savagery and evil".Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness condemned the attack and the RIRA itself.

The victims included people from many different backgrounds: Protestants,Catholics, a Mormon teenager, five other teenagers, six children, a woman pregnant with twins, two Spanish tourists, and other tourists on a day trip from the Republic of Ireland. The nature of the bombing created a strong international and local outcry against the RIRA, which later apologised, and spurred on the Northern Ireland peace process.

Coordinates: 54°35′N 7°17′W / 54.59°N 7.29°W / 54.59; -7.29

Omagh (/ˈoʊmə/ or /ˈoʊmɑː/; Irish pronunciation: [ˈomæ]^{[citation needed]} – from Irish: an Ómaigh, meaning "the virgin plain" [ənˠ ˈoːmˠəi]) is the county town of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is situated where the rivers Drumragh and Camowen meet to form the Strule. The town, which is the largest in the county, had a population of 19,910 at the 2001 Census. Omagh also contains the headquarters of Omagh District Council and the Western Education and Library Board. The town is twinned with East Kilbride (Scotland) and L'Haÿ-les-Roses (France).

The name Omagh is an anglicisation of the Irish name an Óghmaigh (modern Irish an Ómaigh), meaning "the virgin plain". A Franciscan friary was built on the site of the town in about 792 AD. Omagh was founded as a town in 1610. It served as a refuge for fugitives from the east of Tyrone during the 1641 Rebellion. In 1689, the same year as the Battle of the Boyne, James II arrived at Omagh, en route to Derry. Supporters of William III, Prince of Orange, burned the town.

Colm Murphy (born 18 August 1952, Belleeks, County Armagh) is an Irish publican and building contractor who was the first person to be convicted in connection with the Omagh bombing, but whose conviction was overturned on appeal. While awaiting a retrial on criminal charges, Murphy was found liable for the bombing in a civil trial, along with Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell and Seamus Daly. He was subsequently cleared of criminal charges in February 2010.

Murphy was an active Irish republican paramilitary from his late teens. In March 1972 he was arrested in Dundalk regarding an assault, and was sentenced to two years in prison after the Gardaí found a loaded revolver in his car. Murphy was imprisoned in the Curragh military jail but escaped in October 1972, and was not recaptured until May 1973. In June 1976 he was imprisoned again, receiving a three-year sentence for firearms offences and a one-year sentence for Provisional Irish Republican Army membership, both sentences to run concurrently. In July 1983 Murphy was arrested in the US, after attempting to buy a consignment of M60 machine guns to be shipped to Ireland for use by the Irish National Liberation Army. He received a five-year prison sentence, but returned to Ireland in December 1985 after being released early.

Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC (born 21 October 1953) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner. He was a key architect in the rebranding of the Labour Party as "New Labour" and its subsequent landslide victory in the 1997 general election.

He twice resigned from Tony Blair's government while holding Cabinet positions. After his second resignation, he served as the European Commissioner for Trade from 2004 to 2008. He rejoined the government when he was made a life peer by the Queen and took his seat in the House of Lords on 13 October 2008.

Peter Mandelson was born in London in 1953, the son of Mary Joyce (née Morrison) and George Norman Mandelson. His father's family was Jewish, and his father was the advertising manager at The Jewish Chronicle. On his mother's side, he is the grandson of Margaret (Kent) and Herbert Morrison, the London County Council leader and Labour cabinet minister. He was educated at Hendon County Grammar School 1965–72. In 1966 he appeared on stage with the local amateur theatre group, the Hampstead Garden Suburb Dramatic Society as the eponymous lead in The Winslow Boy.

Ross B. Craig (July 1, 1884 – June 27, 1949) was a star football player in Canadian football in the early 20th century. He played for several intermediate teams before playing for the Hamilton Alerts for two years where he won a Grey Cup championship in 1912. The following season he joined the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union's Hamilton Tigers where he won another Grey Cup in 1913. He would finish his career with the Tigers in 1920, after playing five seasons with Hamilton.

Craig was born in Peterborough, Ontario, and died in Hamilton, Ontario. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964 and into the Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1975.