IRISH REMEMBERED:TEN YEARS after her daughter was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, Mary Cregan from Churchtown, Dublin, can still vividly recall the panic and emotion of that fateful day.
On what appeared to be a regular Tuesday morning, Mrs Cregan was on the verge of heading outside to continue her gardening when she heard the television newscast about a disaster in New York, that aircraft had hit the Twin Towers.
Her mind immediately focused on her two daughters, Joanne and Grace, both of whom worked in the World Trade Center.
“I knew. I knew the instant I heard . I rang Ray, my husband, and he told me he had heard in the car and was turned around coming home,” she says.
While Grace rang home to say that she was okay, Mary was unable to contact her other daughter Joanne.
“I rang but I couldn’t get her. I was shaking trying to get the numbers for her.”
Joanne (32) had worked on the 105th floor of the North Tower with an investment and brokerage firm, Cantor Fitzgerald. She was one of seven Irish-born citizens who died in the attacks.
“We are still very sad, still grieving. It is there all the time,” she says.
"We put a death notice every year into The Irish Times. As long as we are here we will put it in."
The Cregans have travelled to Ground Zero on a number of occasions. But this year they have opted to stay in Ireland and will be attending a special ceremony hosted by US ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney on Sunday.
One of the most striking stories to emerge from the tragedy was that of Ruth McCourt from Cork, who was on board the second plane to hit one of the towers. She was travelling to Disneyland with her four-year-old daughter Juliana, who also died in the impact.
Earlier in the day her brother, Ron Clifford, who was in New York, had phoned home to tell them he was safe.
“He was very much in shock and he managed to take the time to actually ring us. We were just glad that he was home and safe and then he said to us that he was worried about Ruth. That he thinks Ruth took off this morning from Logan ,” recalls Ron’s brother Mark, who still lives in Cork.
The nature of the Clifford’s tale, put the family under a media spotlight for which they were unprepared. Ten years later, they are still unsure about how to handle it while they continue to grieve for Ruth and Juliana.
“At some point we want Ruth to be remembered and that is very important for our family but the media . . . sometimes can put their own slant on stories as well,” says Mark. “The normal media handle it okay but for a family that are not media people it is an intrusion.”
For the Clifford family at least, the saga will reach some sort of closure when those responsible for the attacks are brought to trial in a court of law, says Mark.
“We would love that these guys in Guantánamo Bay be put under the American justice system and give the people bereaved in the 9/11 stories to get closure and to go on with their lives.”
The September 11th attacks have left more than just grieving families. Memorial gardens and monuments across the country, built in memory of the tragic events of that day, show the unique place the US holds in the collective Irish psyche.
In Tuam, Co Galway, a memorial garden remembers a native of the area, Ann Marie McHugh, who died in the attacks.
In Donadea Forest Park in Co Kildare a scale model replica of the Twin Towers honours the men and women of the New York fire department, police officers and port authority officials who died in the attacks.
It especially honours the memory of New York firefighter Seán Tallon whose father came from Donadea.
His grandmother and a number of uncles and aunts still live there today.