The gruesome IRA assassination in 1979 of a beloved British king – which took place on the same day as a co-ordinated murderous attack on British troops – led to outrage, grief and aggravation “unrest”, the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army has claimed responsibility for the murder on August 27, 1979, of Lord Louis Mountbatten, 79, Earl of Burma, great-grandson of Queen Victoria, second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and great- uncle of Prince Charles. World War II hero and India’s last viceroy was aboard his 29 foot Shadow V fishing boat with six other people near its summer home in north-west Ireland on the morning of the attack.
A sunny day turns dark
Part of the wreckage of Lord Mountbatten’s ship, the Shadow V, after being bombed by the IRA in August 1979.
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August 27, 1979, a public holiday, had risen sunny, after days of rain. ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten and part of his family who had stayed at their holiday home, Classibawn Castle, near the village of Cliffoney, County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland, decided to take a boat trip. to take advantage of the good weather.
Fifteen minutes after setting sail, a planted bomb was activated by two members of the Provisional IRA, a paramilitary group of Irish nationalists who waged a campaign of terror to drive British forces out of Northern Ireland to create a nation united and independent. Known as the “Troubles”, the conflict raged for 25 years with nearly 2,000 killed, before a ceasefire was called in 1994.
“The boat was there one minute and the next minute it was like a lot of matches floating in the water,” a witness told the New York Times.
The group of seven aboard the Shadow included Mountbatten, her daughter Patricia, her husband, Lord John Brabourne, their 14-year-old twins, Timothy and Nicholas, and Lord Brabourne’s mother, the Dowager Lady Doreen Brabourne. Paul Maxwell, 15, a family friend who worked on the boat, was also on board. Mountbatten, Nicholas Brabourne and Maxwell were killed immediately. Lady Brabourne died the next day and the others survived serious injuries.
“Fifty pounds of gelignite exploded, sending downpours of wood, metal, cushions, life jackets and shoes into the air,” Andrew Lownie, author of The Mountbattens: their lives and their loves, wrote for the BBC. “Then there was a deadly silence.
But the explosion wasn’t the only carnage that day. Later in the afternoon, 18 British soldiers were killed near the Irish border at Warrenpoint in an IRA bombing ambush. “It was the heaviest death toll for the British army in 10 years since it was sent to quell fighting between Roman Catholic and Protestant militants,” according to the report. Times.
Mountbatten, Prince Charles’ mentor, was an easy target
Lord Louis Mountbatten reviews cadets at Metropolitan Police College London, April 2, 1969.
Douglas Miller / Fox Photos / Hulton Archives / Getty Images
Mountbatten was both a sentimental and a symbolic target. “He was one of the most respected members of the royal family and was a mentor to Prince Charles,” says Jeffrey Lewis, lecturer in the international studies program at Ohio State University.
Mountbatten was also an easy target. The bomb had been placed in his boat unattended the night before his murder. He had vacationed in the Irish town of Mullaghmore throughout the 1970s and refused security details, despite repeated threats from the Provisional IRA to assassinate him. Mountbatten had said: “Who the hell would want to kill an old man anyway?”
Brendan O’Leary, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of A treaty on Northern Ireland, notes that while Mountbatten could not have predicted that the IRA would crash and set off a bomb on his boat, he had been lax about his own safety.
“He had been the Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia and would have been the youngest admiral in naval history,” he says. “He was also known as the last viceroy of India, who had overseen his partition. He was therefore a very important public figure, but a 79 year old retiree, who had no role in the British security forces in Northern Ireland and who regularly spent his holidays in Ireland, could not be described as a target of war legitimate.
Timothy White, a political science professor at Xavier University who teaches Irish culture and politics, adds that by murdering one of the royal family’s most beloved members, the IRA hoped to convince the British to leave Northern Ireland and allow Northern Ireland to join the Republic of Ireland.
“By killing such a prestigious and public figure, the IRA wanted everyone in England to fear the potential of the IRA to terrorize the British population,” he says.
A statement by the Interim IRA claimed immediate responsibility for Mountbatten’s “execution”, calling it “a discriminatory act to draw the attention of the English people to the continued occupation of our country.” … The death of Lord Mountbatten and the tributes paid to him contrast with the apathy of the British government and the English people in the face of the deaths of over 300 British soldiers and the deaths of men, women and children Irish in the hands of their forces. “
IRA interim bomb maker Thomas McMahon, 31, has been convicted of the Mountbatten attack and sentenced to life. IRA activist Francis McGirl, 24, has been acquitted. McMahon was released from prison after serving 19 years under the Good Friday Agreement.
READ MORE: How Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland became part of the UK
Fear and indignation
Lord Mountbatten’s casket at Westminster Abbey State funeral as members of the Royal Family, (left-right) Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Prince Charles , look.
Bentley Archives / Popperfoto / Getty Images
The August 27 attacks sparked widespread fear and outrage in the region, Lewis said.
“The indiscriminate nature of the attack led many people to condemn the IRA as being wild and cowardly,” he says. At the same time, the sophistication of the bomb – it was detonated by remote control – coupled with the Warrenpoint ambush suggested that the IRA was becoming more dangerous and more capable. This combination – savagery coupled with tactical skill – was very disturbing.
Among the British, the reaction in Parliament, in the newspapers and on the television news was outrage. O’Leary, who grew up in Northern Ireland and Sudan, points out that Mountbatten had been a war hero and an important mentor to Prince Charles. His murder and that of his children and his daughter’s mother-in-law “were considered particularly scandalous”. In Ireland, he adds, he was outraged that a guest had been killed, along with children and a woman who had no connection with the public or the security forces.
“Ulster Unionists have called for increased security and called the Republic of Ireland a safe haven for terrorists – in fact Irish police were able to identify and convict the organizer of the Mountbatten boat bombing with medical evidence -legal, ”says O’Leary. He adds that among those who were in favor of the IRA’s causes, more supported the attack by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment, which had caused the massacre of civilians on Bloody Sunday in January 1972, than the murder of an old retired grandfather and his father. family.
Margaret Thatcher, elected Prime Minister just before the assassination, saw the IRA as a criminal organization rather than a political one. She responded by removing the political rights associated with POW status for IRA prisoners. The IRA in turn responded with a hunger strike. The leader of the hunger strike, Irish nationalist Bobby Sands, was later elected to the British Parliament but would die in prison as a result of his hunger strike on May 5, 1981. Ultimately, White says, the murder of Mountbatten and his family have signaled an upcoming period for England and Northern Ireland.
READ MORE: Irish Republican Army: timeline
