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Assassination of Lord Mountbatten
1979 bomb attack in Mullaghmore, Ireland From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lord Mountbatten, a relative of the British royal family, was assassinated on 27 August 1979 by Thomas McMahon, an Irish republican and a volunteer for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). McMahon planted a bomb on Mountbatten's cabin cruiser, Shadow V, during Mountbatten's annual summer trip to Classiebawn Castle, his house on the Mullaghmore Peninsula near the village of Cliffoney, County Sligo, Ireland.
The IRA planned the attack on Mountbatten for several months. A bomb team, which included McMahon, constructed a device containing 50 pounds (23 kg) of gelignite. McMahon placed this on Shadow V on the night of 26–27 August 1979 before he and his accomplice, Francis McGirl, drove away. They were arrested 80 miles (130 km) from Mullaghmore during a routine stop. McGirl had no papers to prove either his identity or ownership of the car, and the two men were held by police.
Less than two hours after McMahon's arrest, the bomb was detonated, killing Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and Knatchbull's grandmother Doreen Knatchbull. Three others on the boat were severely injured. When news of the bombing circulated, McMahon and McGirl were charged. Five hours after the bomb went off, the IRA ambushed a British Army patrol with a roadside bomb packed into milk churns; six members of the Parachute Regiment were killed instantly. As reinforcements arrived to assist the wounded, a second bomb went off, killing a further twelve soldiers. The attacks were condemned by world leaders and by the media in both the UK and Ireland.
The investigation by the Garda Síochána showed traces of nitroglycerine and ammonium nitrate, two of the ingredients of gelignite, on the clothing of McMahon and McGirl. The tests also found flakes of green and white paint on McMahon's boots, a paint smear on his jacket—which matched the paint from Shadow V—and sand from Mullaghmore in his boots' tread. In November 1979 McMahon was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment; McGirl was acquitted.
Margaret Thatcher, the UK prime minister, changed the UK's tactics to Northern Ireland, introducing an intelligence-led approach and appointing Maurice Oldfield—the former director of MI6—as an inter-service intelligence co-ordinator. The murders led to a decline in donations to NORAID, the US-based organisation that raised funds for the IRA. US intelligence and law-enforcement became more proactive in investigating IRA arms procurement in the US, and the FBI set up a specialist unit to combat the Irish weapons-smuggling rings.
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Background
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The Troubles in the late 1970s
The Troubles were the conflict in Northern Ireland between unionists (mostly Ulster Protestants) and republicans (mostly Irish Catholics), which began in the late 1960s.[1][a] The unionists—also known as loyalists—wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the UK; Irish republicans wanted Northern Ireland to leave the UK and join a united Ireland.[3]
Between the start of the Troubles and 1976 the republican Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) confined their military activities to Northern Ireland, but that changed in 1976 when they assassinated Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to Ireland.[4] In March 1979 two IRA gunmen shot dead Sir Richard Sykes, the British ambassador in The Hague; the same month Airey Neave, the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army in a car bomb attack in the Palace of Westminster. Neave had been the political mentor and friend of Margaret Thatcher—the leader of the Opposition—and had run her campaign when she was elected to lead the Conservative Party in 1975.[5] Thatcher was described by her biographer Jonathan Aitken as being "numb with shock" at the news.[6]
Lord Mountbatten
Lord Louis Mountbatten was a British statesman, Royal Navy officer and close relative of the British royal family. A member of the prominent Battenberg family, he was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, the maternal uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a second cousin of King George VI. He saw service in the Royal Navy during the First World War and was appointed Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, in the Second World War, where he oversaw the recapture of Burma (December 1944 – August 1945) and Singapore (September 1945) from the Japanese. He later served as the last Viceroy of India and briefly as the first Governor-General of the Dominion of India. During the 1950s he was the commander-in-chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean and First Sea Lord. He then served as the Chief of the Defence Staff until 1965, and for a year as the chairman of the NATO Military Committee.[7][8]
Mountbatten had spent thirty years holidaying at Classiebawn Castle on the Mullaghmore Peninsula near the village of Cliffoney, County Sligo, Ireland. The castle was a country house, built for the 3rd Viscount Palmerston and was owned by Mountbatten's wife.[9] He kept the 28-foot-long (8.5 m) cabin cruiser Shadow V moored in the local harbour, which he used for fishing; the boat was unguarded.[10]
Thomas McMahon and Francis McGirl
Thomas McMahon, a carpenter who lived in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, was one of the IRA's explosive's officers in south County Armagh. Police had no record of him being a republican activist, although he had been detained several years prior to the bombing when he was found in possession of an IRA constitution; he had appeared in Ireland's Special Criminal Court twice, accused of IRA membership, but was acquitted on both occasions. He was known to be friends with Seán Mac Stíofáin and Seamus Twomey, both former IRA chiefs of staff.[11][b]
Francis McGirl lived in Ballinamore, County Leitrim, where he was a gravedigger. He was the nephew of John Joe McGirl, a former IRA chief of staff.[13]
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Build-up and McMahon's actions
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Members of the IRA had presented plans to their superiors for action against Mountbatten for several years; he had been considered a target since the start of the Troubles.[14][15] Mountbatten insisted that he was only given light protection, saying "what would they want with an old man like me?"[16] From the start of the Troubles he was given a twelve-man security detail, which had risen to twenty-eight by 1974. It comprised uniformed and plainclothes members of the Garda Síochána, the Irish Special Branch and the British Special Air Service (SAS) on guard.[17] Mountbatten disliked close security and refused to allow members of his protection onto his boat, or to be nearby in a speedboat when he went out fishing.[18]
In the early 1970s a plan to kill Mountbatten was cancelled by the IRA leadership because of the risk to civilians. In 1976 steps were taken to assassinate him, but an IRA ceasefire stopped the operation and in August 1978 a plan to shoot him on board his boat did not proceed because the choppy waters made a sniper shot too difficult. According to the journalist Annabel Ferriman, following the assassination of Airey Neave by the Irish National Liberation Army—a republican paramilitary group separate to the IRA—"a counter-coup by the IRA was felt by them to be necessary".[19][20] With increased threats against him, the police advised Mountbatten not to holiday in Ireland in 1979; Maurice Oldfield—who had been the director of MI6 until 1978—advised him that members of the royal family were being targeted.[21][22]
The IRA planned the attack on Mountbatten for several months. Two teams worked on the attack: one built the bomb to be used and the other—an intelligence team—focused on reconnaissance. The intelligence team reported that a planned boat trip on Monday 27 August to Mountbatten's lobster pots was probably the last opportunity to bomb him on the boat that year.[23] The bomb team—which included McMahon—constructed a device containing 50 pounds (23 kg) of gelignite.[24][25] In 2024 the former IRA commander Michael Hayes stated that he was the explosives expert who built the bomb, aided by McMahon.[25][26][c]
During Mountbatten's 1979 holiday an SAS corporal on his protection detail reported that Shadow V was a soft target that was moored in a publicly accessible harbour. The corporal also reported seeing a car with Belfast number plates whose driver appeared to be watching the boat. The car was recognised as one that had previously been used carrying IRA bombs, but no action was taken.[27]
On the night of 26–27 August 1979 McMahon boarded the Shadow V and planted the bomb, which contained a radio-controlled detonator, below where Mountbatten was known to sit on board.[28] He then got into a yellow Ford Cortina to travel to Strokestown, County Roscommon with McGirl driving. They then switched to a second car, a red Ford Escort. At 9:55 am the car was stopped 80 miles (130 km) from Mullaghmore by Garda James Lohan, who was conducting routine vehicle tax and insurance checks in the town of Granard, County Longford. McGirl gave a false name and said he had no papers or identification on him; Lohan was suspicious of McGirl's story as to why he was driving a car that did not belong to him, and he noticed the driver's hands were shaking. Lohan took both men into custody in the nearby Garda station.[19][29]
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Assassination
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At 11:15 am on 27 August, Mountbatten left Classiebawn Castle and travelled the fifteen minutes to the local harbour where Shadow V was moored. He was accompanied by his daughter Lady Patricia Brabourne, her husband Lord Brabourne, their twin sons Timothy and Nicholas, the twins' paternal grandmother Doreen Knatchbull (the Dowager Lady Brabourne) and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old boy from Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, who was working as a boatboy.[30][31][d] Police accompanied them from the castle to the boat and then drove to watch them from the nearby clifftop.[33]
After ten minutes sailing the boat reached the lobster pots, where it slowed; Mountbatten was at the helm. As the two boys began to lift one of the pots, the bomb was detonated by remote control from the shore by an unknown man using the modified controls for a model aeroplane. The explosion lifted the boat out of the water and completely destroyed it. Maxwell and Nicholas Brabourne were both killed instantly. Mountbatten's legs were almost completely blown off and he was thrown into the water face down, still alive.[34] In 2009 Timothy Knatchbull recalled the explosion:
My grandfather was at the helm three or four feet behind me and slightly to my right. The gelignite under the deck must have been between us because as we rose into the air we went in different directions. I remember a sensation, as if I had been hit with a club, and a tearing sound. I do not remember my journey through the air or hitting the water but before the debris finished raining down, I was unconscious and about a hundred feet from my grandfather.[35]
Detective Henry, one of the Garda officers, was watching from the cliffs. He recalled that:
The noise was tremendous, terrifying. There was a huge mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke and multi-coloured flashes. This cloud rose high above me, and then started to disappear. There was debris in the sky and on the sea and I was hit with a huge shower of sea-spray. I could hear screams of panic and pain.[36]
Local fishing boats were quickly at the scene. Mountbatten was still breathing when he was pulled from the water, but died within minutes. Dowager Lady Brabourne was badly injured when she was rescued. By the time the boats returned to Mullaghmore harbour, two doctors—on holiday from Belfast—had improvised a first aid post; locals provided doors for use as makeshift stretchers and broom handles for splints. The wounded were transported to Sligo General Hospital. Timothy Knatchbull was one of the more serious casualties; he and Lady Brabourne were the first to be operated on. She was operated on through the night, but died the following morning from internal injuries. Lord Brabourne had badly broken legs, which were saved by surgeons.[37] The IRA claimed responsibility five hours after the bombing.[38]
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Warrenpoint
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The north of Ireland, showing the positions of the Mountbatten attack and the Warrenpoint ambush
Five hours after the bomb on Shadow V, the IRA attacked the British Army on the east coast of the island at Narrow Water Castle outside Warrenpoint, County Down, near the Irish border. The IRA South Armagh Brigade set off a 1,100-pound (500 kg) roadside bomb packed into milk churns.[e] This exploded at 4:40 pm as an army convoy drove passed. Six members of the Parachute Regiment were killed instantly. The remains of the convoy then came under gunfire from a position on the Irish side of the border.[41][42]
Reinforcements were sent, including medics, and a command point was set up at the caste's gatehouse. At 5:12 pm a second bomb, placed in milk churns at the gatehouse, exploded. This was a 1,000-pound (450 kg) device operated by a decoder device in a Tupperware box.[f] The explosion was so fierce that all that was found of the senior officer who arrived with the reinforcements—Lieutenant Colonel David Blair, the commanding officer of the Queen's Own Highlanders—was one of his epaulettes. Eighteen soldiers were killed in the two explosions; it was the biggest loss of life in the Parachute Regiment since Operation Market Garden in 1944.[43]
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Reactions
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The assassination was condemned by world leaders.[44][g] This included denunciation from Jack Lynch, the taoiseach, who said he was "horrified and saddened" by the killing, adding that the IRA "has brought death and sorrow to many thousands of innocent people and shame to all true Irish men and women."[56] The United States Department of State said: "Americans will especially recall his great contribution to our common cause in World War II as well as his many services to this country and to the world since then."[46] Pope John Paul II was due to visit both Ireland and Northern Ireland, with a trip to Armagh, but the Northern Ireland part was cancelled following what they described as "the brutal crimes" of the attacks on Mountbatten and the Warrenpoint ambush;[57] the Pope described the assassination as "an insult to human dignity".[44] Three days of state mourning were announced in Burma (now Myanmar), while in India a week of mourning was observed.[58][59]
The British press was condemnatory of the attack, with the tabloid press expressing rage in their headlines, including the front page headlines in The Daily Express ("These Evil Bastards") and The Sun ("May the Bastards Rot in Hell").[60] An Phoblacht (The Republic)—the republican newspaper published by Sinn Féin, the political party associated with the IRA—carried a statement from the IRA in which they described the murders as "a discriminate act to bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country".[61] The statement continued:
The British army acknowledge that after ten years of war it cannot defeat us but yet the British government continue with the oppression of our people and the torture of our comrades in the H-Blocks. Well, for this we will tear out their sentimental, imperialist heart.[62][61]
The Irish media was also condemnatory of the attack;[63] in The Irish Press, the writer Tim Pat Coogan observed how the IRA's statement contained:
Not a word of sympathy for the victims, two of them mere children, not a hint of regret, not a scintilla of compassion. Murder, whatever the supposed cause, never can be justified. But the murder of Lord Mountbatten – and that, it needs to be emphasised, is what it was – was particularly cruel. A friend of this country ... a friendly, genial man, popular with local people, blown to pieces while on one of his regular visits to this country … In their statement the Provisionals talk of his murder as "an execution". The execution of a 79-year-old man? Such hypocrisy will sicken and disgust all Irish people.[63]
Thatcher hypothesised that the bombers had some links with Libya. Investigations by the security services showed no such connection, and that there was "no evidence that any member of this team has visited Libya".[64] The counter-terrorism consultant Andy Oppenheimer states the IRA received £2 million from Syria, through a contact in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, for the murder of Mountbatten and other acts.[65][66][h] Others had different theories: James Molyneaux—the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)—and Enoch Powell—the UUP MP for South Down—alleged involvement by the American Central Intelligence Agency in Mountbatten's death, as part of a scheme to get Ireland to join NATO.[68]
The British government had pressed the government of Ireland over the cross-border aspect of IRA activity for some time; the death of Mountbatten in Ireland and of the shooting at the survivors from south of the border at Warrenpoint confirmed their suspicion. Thatcher pressed Lynch for action in the wake of the two attacks, including allowing British helicopters to fly up to 9.3 miles (15 km) into Irish airspace in pursuit of IRA units. Lynch allowed overflights of up to 3.1 miles (5 km); when news of this became public, he was forced to resign.[69]
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Investigation and trial
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The Garda collected the debris from the boat, including using diver units to recover the engine and parts of the bomb, which were in 30 feet (9.1 m) of water;[70] the aim was to rebuild the boat to establish the type of device used.[71] The forensic investigation was headed by James Donovan, Ireland's most senior forensic scientist.[72]
On 29 August McMahon and McGirl appeared in the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. They were released on a technicality but rearrested straight away and charged with being members of the IRA; the following day they were charged with the murders.[73][i] Forensics tests showed traces of nitroglycerine and ammonium nitrate, two of the ingredients of gelignite, on the clothing of both men. The tests also found flakes of green and white paint on McMahon's boots, a paint smear on his jacket—which matched the paint from Shadow V—and sand from Mullaghmore in his boots' tread.[76]
The case against McMahon and McGirl opened on 5 November 1979 at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. The trial concluded on 23 November; McMahon was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. McGirl was acquitted.[77][78] McMahon reappeared in court in January 1980 charged on the separate charge of being a member of the IRA. He swore on oath that he was not a member, and had not been so at the time of the bombing. The charges were dismissed.[79]
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Funerals
Maxwell's funeral took place on 29 August 1979 in Enniskillen.[71] On 6 September the joint funeral of Dowager Lady Brabourne and her grandson Nicholas took place at the family church in Mersham, Kent.[80]
The ceremonial funeral of Mountbatten was held on 5 September 1979 at Westminster Abbey, under tight security; he had planned his funeral for over ten years and it reflected all aspects of his life. It was attended by Queen Elizabeth II, members of the Royal Family, members of fourteen other royal houses, and Thatcher and all of her surviving predecessors. Thousands of people turned out for the funeral procession, which began at Wellington Barracks, including representatives of the three services and military contingents from France, Burma, India, Canada and the US. His coffin was carried in cavalry armour and was also accompanied by 118 members of the Royal Navy. The funeral service was televised on BBC1 and the Prince of Wales read psalm 107.[j] Mountbatten was buried in Romsey Abbey, Hampshire, the same day.[82]
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Legacy
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Thatcher was only four months into her premiership when the assassination and the deaths at Warrenpoint occurred. According to Eamonn Kennedy, the Irish ambassador to the UK between 1978 and 1983, Mountbatten's murder—and that of Neave and those of British soldiers—"left deep psychological scars" on what he called Thatcher's "Irish outlook".[83] Although she wanted to focus on domestic economic matters, the events pushed Northern Ireland to the top of her political agenda and she visited the region at the end of August 1979. There was a political struggle between the military and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as to which should be the primary force countering terrorism in Northern Ireland. Rather than undertake any heavy-handed measures, which had backfired in the past,[k] Thatcher decided on an intelligence-led approach, and appointed Maurice Oldfield—the former director of MI6—as an inter-service intelligence co-ordinator.[85]
Mountbatten's murder led to a loss of sympathy for the IRA's cause among the Irish American community. This led to a decline in donations to NORAID, the US-based organisation that raised funds for the IRA, although donations had been in decline since the mid-1970s.[86] The murder led to an increased awareness within US intelligence circles of IRA arms procurement. In May 1980 the FBI established a unit in New York to investigate the weapons-smuggling rings between the east coast of the US and Ireland.[87]
McGirl died in March 1995 when the tractor he was driving overturned, killing him instantly.[88] While in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, McMahon renounced his connection with the IRA.[89] After nineteen years in prison he was paroled from his life sentence in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, as part of the Northern Ireland peace process.[90] In 2021 Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin, apologised for the assassination.[91]
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Notes and references
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