There was no one in Banbridge on Saturday whose mind did not dwell on what might have happened in their town exactly three weeks previously. On that Saturday afternoon a car-bomb exploded on the main shopping street following a very inadequate warning. Some 35 people were injured.
As the people of the Co Down town stood in their thousands remembering the Omagh dead, the scars of the explosion there were still visible.
The prayer service took place in front of the wrecked shell of a Woolworths store on Newry Street. A number of buildings were boarded up and scaffolding stood in front of others. Some shops were advertising "bomb damage" sales. Signs telling customers that stores would close in the afternoon "as a mark of respect for the people of Omagh" could be seen in the remaining store windows.
Just like Omagh, Banbridge was packed with shoppers when the 20-minute bomb warning was given. The RUC was still clearing the scene when the 500lb bomb exploded in the centre of the town. Metal from the exploding car was found 600 yards away.
It was only "by the grace of God" that Banbridge did not suffer the same carnage as that in Omagh, the chief executive of Banbridge District Council, Mr Robert Gilmor, said at the start of the prayer service on Saturday.
A native of Omagh, he had spent the week attending several funerals of friends and former colleagues. "It has been a very sad week for me," he said.
As he spoke, thousands stood in the sunshine, silently recalling the final minutes of the lives of the people massacred in Omagh just seven days previously.
The chairman of Banbridge District Council, Mr Seamus Doyle, said people were very aware that they could also have endured such a tragedy and were humbled "as we realise what we could have suffered".
He spoke of the huge loss and pain of the people of Omagh. "We meet here today to keep a moment of reflection and remembrance as we think about all those affected by the bomb in Omagh last Saturday. This was such an appalling crime against humanity that no words are adequate to express the revulsion we feel," he said, adding that the people of the town wanted to be together to show the way they felt.
Representatives from the four main churches took part in the service: the Rev John Scott, rector of the Church of Ireland, the Rev Uel Matthews, of the Presbyterian Church, Father Michael Farrell, of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Rev Desmond Curran, of the Methodist Church.
The minute's silence followed the reading of the names of the 28 dead.
Afterwards, Mr Scott told The Irish Times that the large attendance indicated how thankful the people of the town were at their own escape. "That day my own son, Ian, was in town buying a pair of rugby boots and a pair of trousers. He was just a few minutes down the street when the bomb went off. That's just one of hundreds of stories which people around here could tell you."
He said relations between both sides of the community were very good in Banbridge. "Luckily, we have very good community relations. Perhaps that is why we and Omagh were targeted."