Gareth's mother was taken to hospital for surgery in Belfast by helicopter.

His father and grandfather travelled by car to be with her.

“My father needed to be with her."

“Him and my grandfather and possibly my mother’s cousin and possibly others decided to hastily get in a car and drive to the Royal Victoria Hospital.

"This was extremely late on the evening of 15 August, certainly in the hours of darkness.”

Gareth said he stayed with his grandmother, who was frail and in her 70s.

"I believe that my father and grandfather thought it was best that I didn’t attend the hospital due to the injuries that my mother had sustained.

"It might be best that I didn’t see her in that condition.”

Gareth tells the inquiry that he stayed with neighbours while his father went to look for Geraldine.

His father's brother, Peter, was then sent to collect him to take him to his grandparents' house.

"It was my understanding that she had a leg injury and that was as much as I knew at that point."

As the evening went on, it became clear that Geraldine "had suffered terrible injuries" but Gareth says he was "protected and shielded from the magnitude of them because he was so young".

"I thought she was immortal," he adds. "I thought that nothing could hurt her.

"I had a feeling that things would change and she would need to recuperate from her injuries and she would need me and my father to help her but I fully expected her to come home at some point."

However, Gareth tells the inquiry that when he heard Geraldine was being moved to the Royal Victoria Hospital, in Belfast, for surgery he did become "gravely concerned".

Gareth and his father began to try to find out what had happened, checking Ceefax [a teletext service] but there were no updates.

They tried to make phone calls, but the lines were disrupted due to the bomb.

They did find out there had been "an incident in town and a bomb of sorts had detonated".

Gareth was 15 at the time and says at that age, living in Omagh, the "Troubles were a foreign, alien concept to me".

He was surprised that Omagh had been targeted.

His father had lived in Belfast in the 1980s, and was "more familiar with the Troubles," had a "terrible feeling".

He knew something had happened. But they had no means to contact her.

His dad went into Omagh to try to find Geraldine

Image source, Omagh Inquiry

Having just spoken about having lunch with his mother, Gareth says he never saw his mother again and that last interaction was the last time the two of them had spoken.

That afternoon he and his stepfather were digging in the back garden in “extremely hot” weather.

He was thirsty and went back into the house to get a glass of water.

"While I was in the house, unbeknown to me, something terrible happened,” he adds.

“I came out of the house and my father was standing in the back garden, and he looked at me and he said: ‘Did you hear that?’

“He said ‘it possibly sounds like a bomb has gone off’.

“I said to him, ‘I have heard nothing, I have been in the house and I think it is probably nothing, I think you are probably over-reacting’.”

Gareth says he then heard a “cacophony of sirens heading towards the direction of Omagh town centre”.

Paul Greaney KC, senior counsel to the inquiry, now moves on to ask Gareth about the day of the Omagh bomb.

Gareth recalls certain aspects of the day "as though it was yesterday".

"For Omagh the weather was unsually nice and unusally warm."

Geraldine always worked on a Saturday and his father was looking after him.

On the Saturday of the bomb Geraldine came home for lunch, as she usually did, and the three of them ate together.

They "didn't know it at the time" but it was their last meal together, Gareth says.

He had just bought a video game a day or two before, and being a young boy and excited to play it, he ate "extremely quickly" and "ran from the table upstairs".

"I was totally engrossed in the game," he says. "My mother and father sat downstairs, they had been talking and my mother was leaving to go back to work and she had said to me: 'Are you not coming downstairs to say goodbye to me?'

"But I didn't and I shouted down the stairs: 'Sure why don't you just go on, I'll see you later on.'

"Because I thought I was going to see her three to four hours later maximum.

"So she did go on."

Gareth pauses, visibly upset.

"She got in the car and she drove away," he says.

Looking back to 1998, their life as a family was "filled with contentment", Gareth says.

"We were very happy and didn't have any stress or worries."

Geraldine loved looking after Gareth and his step-father, who he refers to as his father.

She also enjoyed gardening, decorating and getting ideas for both of these, Gareth says.

"She wanted our home to be warm and a place we could invite people into."

Gareth says his mother collected money for the Sacred Heart church for new roofing funds, as well as other charities.

She met Mark Breslin in 1993 and they had a courtship of two years, getting married in December 1995.

“He then became my stepfather, my father,” he adds.

They all moved together into a home in Omagh.

“My mother was 40 years of age and it was the first time she had owned a property of her own and she was incredibly excited.

"Her focus was on me her son and her marriage and her new house, she was delirious with excitement at moving.

“We were very happy in the new house, there was some sadness at moving out of my grandparents’ home, where I lived for the first 12 years of my life.

Gareth recalls a fond memory of his mother from when he was six or seven and singing at Omagh town hall around Christmas.

"I didn't really like singing, I'm not a natural singer," he says.

He was feeling nervous.

Geraldine supported Gareth and "went to everything [he] was in" but on this occasion she had a "terrible flu" and was bed-bound so couldn't come.

"But the end of the performance she actually was there - she'd stood and watched the whole thing," Gareth says.

"When I saw that I became very emotional.

"It was typical of the sort of woman that my mother was."

Geraldine also loved line-dancing and did it for several years, Gareth says.

"It was good exercise and it was meeting people and being surrounded by people."

Gareth says that he "never wanted for anything" as a child.

"She provided me with everything she could. She worked very hard, was extremely diligent when it came to her finances."

Geraldine spoilt him with gifts, Gareth says, especially at Christmas.

"That was typical of my mother and the sort of person she was.

"She got paid on a Friday afternoon and I used to torture her, as a young boy who was obsessed with toys, saying: 'What have you bought me? What have you bought me?'"

Once Geraldine produced a skateboard and Gareth says he "couldn't believe it".

Image source, family picture

Gareth says his mother was a "very sociable person" who liked talking and dancing.

"She was a very warm-hearted person, she loved being out socialising," he adds.

He says his family was well known in the Omagh community.

He says that his grandfather was highly respected and had been a "veteran of the Second World War".

"My mother knew everyone and everyone knew her," he adds.

He says she was always about helping other people if the opportunity arose and was "unbelievably kind".

Geraldine worked in the retail sector, Gareth says, working for FA Wellworth's, Penny's, and Watterson's drapers, where she was on the day of the bombing.

She had a "great relationship" with her colleagues and they "respected her very much and became friends".

She loved working there, Gareth says.

"It was her ideal job," he adds. "They were like a family. The majority of the staff had worked there for many decades."

She was "a familiar face" in the shop, and well-known with customers.

On days off, Geraldine, who was very "house-proud" would clean and organise the house, Gareth tells the inquiry.

She also liked gardening, walking and decorating.

"She was always busy on her days off."

Geraldine raised Gareth as a single parent, he says, and they lived with his maternal grandparents.

He had a "wonderful" childhood.

"It was very happy, I was very happy at school," he says. "The first part of my childhood was very content and my mother was very content.

"She became even happier when she met and married my stepfather, Mark Breslin, later on."

Gareth tells the inquiry he had a "fantastic" relationship with his mother.

"I adored her, I loved her unconditionally and she loved me unconditionally.

"I was her only child and she was very protective of me."

"She was one in a million."

Image source, Family picture

Paul Greaney, counsel to the inquiry, says evidence will now be given to remember Geraldine Breslin.

He says Gareth McCrystal, Geraldine's son will speak to the inquiry.

Geraldine was a very happily 43-year-old married mother who worked as a shop assistant at Watterson's drapers.

Gareth says that Geraldine was an Omagh woman "through and through".

He says she was "schooled here and married here" and died in Omagh.

He says that had she lived she would have been celebrating her 70th birthday this year and no doubt the family would have been celebrating.

Gareth says, at 42, he's now approaching the age his mum was when she died and it's "terrifying" that next year, in terms of her age he will have outlived her.

He says his mum was the second of four girls.

The eldest was his aunt Rosemary would have wanted to be here, his late aunt Kate was the third and his aunt Patricia, who is at the inquiry today, was the youngest.

Image source, Family picture

Inquiry chairman Rt Hon Lord Turnbull now responds to the tribute to Debra-Anne.

He says that many of the tributes heard, so far, have been of young people or children whose lives were taken from them "before they could experience the joys and tribulations of a full and independent life".

"In Debra-Anne's case, it further compounds the cruel denial of a future that on her funeral day she received confirmation of her exam results which would have taken her to university," he says.

He thanks her family for their assistance to the inquiry.

The hearing will now take a short break.

Image source, Family picture

Debra-Anne was involved in cross-community work at school and went to Denmark on a student exchange scheme, he says.

On the day of the bomb, she was evacuated from the beauty salon and she walked down Market Street where the bomb detonated.

At her funeral she was described as being "full of life and energy", Mr Rafferty says.

Photographs of Debra-Anne are played on the screen.

Image source, Family picture

Day three of the inquiry has got underway at the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh.

Today’s hearing begins with a tribute to Debra-Anne Cartwright, 20, who was working in a beauty salon in Omagh on the day of the explosion.

A representative for the inquiry, John Rafferty, rises to make a statement about Debra-Anne.

She was a former Omagh High School pupil, awaiting her A Level results. She wanted to study textile design at Manchester University, he says.

"Her results which arrived on the day of her funeral confirmed that she had been successful," Mr Rafferty adds.

The stream from the inquiry is now live.

You can click the play button at the top of the page to watch. We will also provide text updates here.

Here is a timeline, showing how events unfolded on 15 August 1998.

The Real IRA later claimed responsibility for the attack, in which 29 people were killed and more than 200 were injured.

Earlier on Thursday, Alan Rodgers, a journalist at the Ulster Herald, tells BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster the past few days' evidence has been "very harrowing".

"It's making people aware of the stories behind the simple stats of who has been killed and what age they were," he says.

"It's probably the first time we get down to talking about the people as they are and as they were at that time."

Mr Rodgers has been at the inquiry this week and he tells the programme that there have been "a very limited number" of people in the public gallery - at the most a dozen in total so far.

"What happened on that day was so painful," he says. "People are reluctant to relive that."

In terms of the inquiry's aim to establish if the bombing could have been prevented, Mr Rodgers says: "Obviously there are those for whom that is extremely important - and it is extremely important - but I think a lot of people just want this to be over and to be able to proceed on with their lives."

Image source, Family pictures

Welcome back to the third day of our coverage of the Omagh Bombing Inquiry.

The inquiry is examining whether the worst atrocity of the Troubles could have been prevented.

Twenty-nine people, including a woman expecting twins, were murdered in the Real IRA attack on 15 August 1998.

This week is focussing on commemorative hearings.

Thursday morning will hear tributes to Debra-Anne Cartwright, 20, Geraldine Breslin, 43, and Gareth Conway, 18.

The inquiry is due to start at 10am.