This article is from page 23 of the 2011-09-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 23 JPG
THE horror of September 11 has been recalled this week by a Doonbegman whose daughter escaped with her life thanks to a decision that changed the course of here life in a number of ways.
Claire Ring, daughter of PJ Harvey from Banhsa in Doonbeg, worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center – her office with Oppenheimer being on the 34th floor.
Harvey was at home in Hyde Park, New York, when the tower was hit at 8.46am that September 11 morning and for a few frantic hours after learning of the terrorist attack sought the whereabouts of his daughter.
“It was incredible,” Harvey told The Clare People this week. “It changed the face of the free world and changed the face of travelling forever. Straight away I said to myself ‘Claire is at work in the World Trade Center, is she safe?’
“Everyone who worked on the 34th floor got out, but the thing was, knowing Claire she would have waited for her friend Jennifer, who worked higher up and who was pregnant. She would have waited just to make sure she was alright. That’s what happened to a good many people. They never thought the whole building would come down and they hung around waiting for friends.
“We got a call to turn on our television and after that we were frantically trying to track her down. We thought she was gone to work – it wasn’t until around 12 o’clock in the day that we found out that she hadn’t gone to work that day, that she had gone to the doctor.
“What a relief that was. Going to the doctor that day probably saved her life – it was the day she found out she was pregnant. She was 31 at the time – she had a lovely baby boy Kyle and has had three more since. We could just thank God,” he adds.
The 70-year-old, who is home on holiday, worked in New York City for many years and was head of the local 608th union, giving work to many people who were subsequently lost in the Twin Towers attack.
“We lost ten carpenters from our union,” he recalls. “We lost two brothers who were working with the financial company Cantor Fitzgerald. A great friend of mine from Fermanagh lost two sons that day. I remember sending them out as apprentices from the 608th Carpenters Union and they went onto work for Cantor Fitzgerald,” adds Harvey.