Featured Article Summary #232

Lord Mountbatten, a retired British statesman and cousin to Queen Elizabeth II, was killed on 27 August 1979 off the coast of Mullaghmore, Ireland. Thomas McMahon, linked to the Provisional IRA, placed a bomb on Mountbatten’s boat, the cabin cruiser Shadow V, during his yearly summer trip to his home nearby. The IRA had been planning the attack for months, and McMahon and an accomplice, Francis McGirl, were arrested shortly after placing the bomb. Less than two hours later, the explosion killed Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas, and Nicholas’s grandmother Doreen, along with a boy crewing the boat, while others were badly injured. Evidence found by Irish police connected McMahon and McGirl to the bomb, leading to McMahon’s life sentence and McGirl’s acquittal. The attack also led to major changes in UK policy toward Northern Ireland, including a greater role for intelligence services and tougher action against IRA fundraising and arms smuggling. The Troubles were a conflict in Northern Ireland that started in the late 1960s between unionists (mostly Protestant) and republicans (mostly Catholic). Unionists wanted Northern Ireland to stay in the United Kingdom, while republicans wanted it to leave and join a united Ireland. During the late 1970s, the Provisional IRA and other republican groups carried out attacks, including assassinations of British figures such as Christopher Ewart-Biggs, Sir Richard Sykes, and Airey Neave, who was a close political ally of Margaret Thatcher. Lord Mountbatten was a British statesman and Royal Navy officer, closely related to Britain’s royal family and a major military leader in both world wars. He led efforts to recapture Burma and Singapore from Japan in World War II, later served as the last viceroy of India, and held several high defence and NATO roles, including First Sea Lord and chairman of the NATO Military Committee. For many summers he stayed at Classiebawn Castle in Ireland, where his largely unguarded cabin cruiser, Shadow V, was kept in the nearby harbour. Thomas McMahon was a carpenter from Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, who worked as an IRA explosives officer in south County Armagh. Although the police had no record of him being a republican activist, he had been detained years earlier with an IRA constitution, appeared twice in Ireland’s Special Criminal Court but was acquitted both times, and he was connected to other senior former IRA figures; he was also suspected in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. His accomplice was Francis McGirl, a gravedigger from Ballinamore, County Leitrim and the nephew of former IRA chief of staff John Joe McGirl. Because of his links to the royal family, the IRA had considered killing Lord Mountbatten since 1970, and he received an increasing level of security. Attempts to carry out an assassination were repeatedly stopped or failed, but by 1979 threats against him grew and planning continued for months. During his holiday in August, the bomb was planted on his boat Shadow V, and McMahon is widely said to have been involved, after which both men were stopped by Garda James Lohan and taken into custody.