9/11 remembered

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore is among those reflecting on where they were on 11 September 2001. Have your say here.

Eamon Gilmore, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs

"I was in Foley's on the Corner of Merrion Street and Merrion Row for a lunchtime sandwich.

"As I was ordering I noticed a group of customers gathered around the television. At first I assumed that they were glued to the screen for a sporting event of one kind or another but a few moments of looking at the screen and seeing only sky I asked what was happening.

"The response that a plane had crashed into the Twin Towers was unbelievable but sure enough as I watched on in horror the second plane hit the tower".

Sean Gallagher, Presidential Candidate

When the airliners hit the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, I was in Navan Co Meath. After five years working with Louth County Enterprise Board, I had just set up Smarthomes with my business partner Derek Roddy, supplying cable and integrated technology into new homes.

The house in Navan was one of our first jobs. The radio was on and I remember hearing Niall O'Dowd calling into Joe Duffy to tell him that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre and I recall the total confusion and disbelief.

The unfolding events were horrifying and made more impactful with the television footage. Yet what struck me in the following days was the way in which New Yorkers in particular came together, supported and consoled each other and how the acts of heroism, large and small sustained that community

Michael D Higgins, Presidential Candidate

"My daughter Alice was living in New York at the time and when I first saw the television screen it seemed unreal, almost like a film. Then it became clear that a terrible human tragedy was unfolding in real time.

"In New York, many phone masts had been on the towers and it was impossible to get a call through. Alice had friends visiting her from Galway and they had been in the Trade Centre the day before. When we finally reached her, she told us they had been driving to hospitals to donate blood which wasn't used because so many were dead rather than injured.

"There were many other parents far more afraid for their children that day and my heart went out to all who lost their loved ones. I was also filled with admiration for the generosity and bravery with which New Yorkers responded to the tragedy.

Mary Davis, Independent Presidential Candidate

"I was at Dublin Airport returning from business in Brussels and as we were making our way to the terminal the awful news came through.

"Needless to say I was absolutely shocked and numbed by what I heard.

"I went straight home and watched the tragic events unfold on television."

Sharon Ní Bheoláin, News Presenter

"09/11/01, a dank, grey Tuesday, I was rostered on a reporting shift for the late night News 2. I recall quizzing the News at One team about an item featured on the programme, it was approaching ten minutes to two, meaning I had ten vital minutes to comb the papers, scan the newslists and check the fax files for ideas to thrash out at our afternoon news conference.

"It was then that the alert came through from our Washington Correspondent, Carol Coleman, details were sketchy but CNN had just broken the news, the first TV network to do so, that there had been an 'incident' at the World Trade Centre.

"The notion that this was an attack, a carefully executed assault on mainland America never entered my mind, to my eternal embarrassment I continued on my trawl for domestically inspired news stories.

"Just ten minutes later, news of a second event, this time at the South Tower, stopped me in my tracks: a belated dawning on this reporter; we were witnessing, in real time, an act of global terrorism, on a level which had up until then seemed unimaginable, at that moment it felt very real."

Dave Fanning, Radio Presenter

"I was coming through Dublin Airport when I got the first inkling something was wrong.

"I was coming back from LA, and it was the second time I'd been in LA that summer. Sinead O'Connor was on the same flight as me, but we were not on the flight together - I was sitting with my wife.

"I still have a book I bought the day before - an album compilation of some kind. Its funny because the date of sale is on it - 9/10 I guess it is.

"I always think if my flight was five hours later I wouldn't have been able to get out of America for a week. It wasn't until I arrived home from the airport that I became aware of the true horror of what was actually happening."

Caitriona Perry, RTÉ Journalist

"I was a final year journalism student studying for a semester at Boston University at the time. The campus is right in the middle of the city. I had a part-time job in the University's Registrar's office and that Tuesday morning I had arrived into the office just before 9am and was catching up on the news from home on the Irish Times website when I saw a picture flash up of the Twin Towers burning.

I initially thought it was a promo for a new disaster movie and clicked on the picture only to discover the tragic reality. Some time later my boss arrived into the office in a terrible state, arms flailing and shouting 'We're under attack, we're under attack, our nation is under attack'.

"He said the Pentagon had been attacked, I told him that the Twin Towers had been hit... then we realised it was in fact both.

"All phonelines went down and it was difficult to contact people. We went out onto the street, where everyone else seemed to be. F16 fighter jets were flying overhead... they were flying so low that you could read the identification numbers on their undercarriages.

"I'll never forget the size or noise of those planes, up that close.

"Lots of people in Boston are from New York or have family and friends there, and most could not make immediate contact with their loved ones. Nearly everywhere I looked, I saw people crying and panicking, with pure terror etched on their faces.

"The nearest television was in the student food court so a huge crowd, young and old, had gathered there in perfect silence, glued to the coverage. Anytime anyone so much as coughed they were 'shushed' into silence. When it emerged that the two flights had in fact taken off from Boston airport, sadness and shock filled the room... sadness that so many Bostonians had been killed, and shock that the terrorists had apparently been walking among us."