A MEMORIAL to those who died in a hotel fire in Bundoran, Co Donegal, was unveiled in the town yesterday, exactly 30 years after the tragedy, which claimed 10 lives.
Families and relatives of the victims who included five children, one an 18-month-old child whose body was never reclaimed from the ashes, attended prayer services in two churches and an unveiling of the memorial seat with the names of the victims inscribed on it close to where they died.
For many years relatives accused Bundoran councillors of unwillingness to acknowledge with a memorial what happened in their town.
Initially, plans to unveil the bench were also dismissed by relatives who believed it wouldn’t be a sufficiently prominent memorial.
Main critic Noel Dowdican, whose 60-year-old aunt Sadie Dowdican died in the fire, at one stage accused councillors of not wanting a monument because it would be bad for tourism.
But yesterday he said he now accepted the inscribed bench as a fitting memorial.