[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 51 (Monday, December 27, 1999)]
[Pages 2666-2667]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Radio Remarks for the ``Lost Lives'' Christmas Eve Broadcast

December 24, 1999

    3625, Maura Monaghan, from Tyrone. A Catholic girl, just 18 months 
old. To her family, little Maura Monaghan was known simply as 
``Mossie.'' She was the youngest victim of the Omagh bombing. Her 
mother, Avril, her grandmother, Mary Grimes, and her unborn twin sisters 
also were killed on that Saturday afternoon, the 15th of August, 1998, 
at 10 past 3 p.m., when that terrible bomb exploded.
    They had gone to Omagh town as a special treat, to celebrate Mary 
Grimes' birthday. They had even been to church earlier that day, the 
same church where their funeral services would be held just a few days 
later.
    I still feel a personal connection with this tragedy. Two weeks 
later, Hillary and I visited Omagh. We saw the scene where 31 people 
were killed in the worst, single incident of The Troubles. And then we 
went to the Leisure Center, where the families of the victims had had to 
wait for news of their loved ones. They were again to meet us, as were 
many victims who had been terribly injured on that day.
    That meeting was one of the most difficult and moving experiences of 
our lives. But I have to say, it was also one of the most uplifting. 
Again and again, people who had been injured or lost loved ones said, 
``Keep going with the peace process. Keep going, and don't give up on 
it. Do whatever you can to make sure that nobody else suffers as we are 
suffering.''
    I know they suffer still. I know the first dawn of the new 
millennium will be a sad time for those who remember the family and 
friends who should still be with them. But I never forgot their courage 
and their faith in the new beginning for Northern Ireland and neither 
did so many of you, who raised your voices and said, ``Enough is 
enough.''
    And so we kept going. And now it looks as though, after all the 
difficulties, the new day we've been talking about for so long is 
finally at hand.
    And so today, on Christmas Eve, we remember little Maura Monaghan, 
Mossie, a beautiful, curly-haired angel who was loved

[[Page 2667]]

by everyone. She lives not only in our memory but in our determination 
to build a better Northern Ireland for all the children of tomorrow.

Note: The President's remarks were recorded at 11:28 a.m. on December 18 
in the Oval Office at the White House for later broadcast on RTE in 
Ireland. The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on December 23 but was embargoed for release until 3:30 a.m., 
December 24. These remarks were also made available on the White House 
Press Office Radio Actuality Line. Maura Monaghan was the 3,625th victim 
of  The Troubles.