Creeslough: 'It never came into my head she'd be caught up in it' sister of blast victim recalls
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The sister of Creeslough victim Jessica Gallagher has spoken of the moment she heard about the explosion that killed her sister.
Speaking from her home in California, Lisa Gallagher said she received a phonecall at 3.45pm last October 7 from a friend who wouldn’t normally call during the day. The friend told her there had been an explosion in her hometown of Creeslough, Donegal
“My first thought - was who is dead?” she told the Soul Brew podcast.
She said she knew Jessica had been at the Gallagher family home just outside the village the night before, and she told herself: “I need to find out where she is.”
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She said she rang her sister but her phone just rang out.
“Her phone was still ringing,” Lisa recalled, so she told herself “she must be grand”. Lisa said:
As well as Lisa's 24-year-old fashion designer sister, the Cresslough blast claimed the lives of Martina Martin, the 49-year-old mother-of-four who had been working at the Applegreen filling station where the explosion occurred. Leona Harper, a 14-year-old who was choosing an ice-cream with a friend she was due to have a sleepover with, also died
She was the last of the 10 victims to be recovered from the site, a full 24 hours after the blast.
Five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe had gone to the shop with her 50-year-old father Robert to buy a cake for her mother’s birthday.
Hughie Kelly, 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 Monoghan were in the post office when they were struck by the blast.
The 36-year-old was there to collect her mother’s pension while 49-year-old Martin McGill, who was his mother's sole carer, was on one of his usual daily trips to the shop.
James O’Flaherty died as he heading back to his car, where his son Hamish was waiting for him.
Their deaths will be marked by a memorial service at the site this afternoon at 3.17pm, and then later, with a private mass in the village church of St Michael’s.