Ronnie Hill grew up in Bray, Co Wicklow, and studied at St Andrew's College where he captained the cricket team. He moved to the North to teach at Mourne Grange in Kilkeel, Co Down.
He met his wife, Noreen, at a Presbyterian Church social evening there in 1953. They married three years later and moved to Edinburgh to train as missionary teachers.
They worked at Calibar in eastern Nigeria and in Freetown in Sierra Leone. They returned to the North in the mid-1960s. Mr Hill taught at a variety of schools before becoming principal of Enniskillen High School.
Bishop Brian Hannon said of him: "I saw a careful administrator, a sportsman and a family man who cared deeply about the boys and girls for whom he was responsible. He wanted every one of them to develop their full potential.
"He shared with them his love of books, of chess, of table tennis, of football and, of course of people. He was competitive, forward-looking and courageous whether it was in launching into cross-community and cross-Border links or into information technology."
Mr Hill's wife was not with her husband at the Remembrance Day service in November 1987 because she was recovering from chemotherapy treatment for cancer.
When the bomb exploded, a wall fell on top of him and rescuers spotted his gloved hand through the rubble. He suffered a fractured skull, jaw, pelvis and shoulder but his injuries did not appear critical.
When he lapsed into a coma two days later, his family thought it was temporary. When his wife set up her own nursing home, she filled his room with his favourite photographs and paintings. She would tell him about the progress of his six grandchildren whom he never saw.
Speaking three years ago on the 10th anniversary of the bomb, she said: "People say he is in a vegetative state but to us he is a person. The girls talk to him as a father. I see him as my husband. His grandchildren see him as their grandfather."
Mrs Hill has said she prays daily for Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness. She has urged those bereaved in the Omagh bomb not to be bitter.