Assassination of Lord Mountbatten
, a retired British statesman and cousin to Queen Elizabeth II, was assassinated on 27 August 1979 off the coast of Mullaghmore, Ireland. Thomas McMahon, an Irish republican and a volunteer for the Provisional Irish Republican Army, planted a bomb on Mountbatten's boat, the cabin cruiser Shadow V, during Mountbatten's annual summer trip to Classiebawn Castle, his house on the Mullaghmore Peninsula.
The IRA had planned the attack for several months. A bomb team, which included McMahon, constructed a device containing of the explosive gelignite. McMahon placed this on Shadow V on the night of 26 August 1979 before he and his accomplice, Francis McGirl, drove away. They were arrested during a routine stop from Mullaghmore. McGirl did not have the papers to prove his identity or ownership of the car, and so both men were held by the police.
The bomb was detonated less than two hours later, killing Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas and Nicholas's grandmother Doreen. Also killed was Paul Maxwell, a boy who was crewing for Mountbatten. Three other passengers were severely injured. When news of the bombing broke, McMahon and McGirl were charged. Five hours after the bomb went off, the IRA ambushed a British Army patrol with two roadside bombs, killing eighteen British soldiers. The attacks were condemned by world leaders and by the media in both the UK and Ireland.
The investigation by the Garda Síochána—the Irish police—found 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, which matched the paint from Shadow V, on McMahon's boots and jacket, and sand from Mullaghmore in his boots' treads. McMahon was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 1979; McGirl was acquitted.
The bombing led to Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, changing the UK's strategy towards Northern Ireland. She introduced an approach in which the intelligence services took a more active role; she appointed Maurice Oldfield as an inter-service intelligence co-ordinator. Donations to NORAID, the US-based organisation that raised funds for the IRA, declined. American intelligence and law enforcement became more proactive in investigating IRA arms procurement in the US, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation set up a specialist unit to combat weapons smuggling to Ireland.
Background
The Troubles in the late 1970s
were the conflict in Northern Ireland between unionists and republicans, which began in the late 1960s. The unionists—also known as loyalists—want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom; republicans want Northern Ireland to leave the UK and join a united Ireland.The Provisional Irish Republican Army was a paramilitary group that wanted to bring about Irish reunification through armed struggle. In 1976 they assassinated Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to Ireland, in Dublin. Two IRA gunmen shot dead Sir Richard Sykes, the British ambassador in The Hague in March 1979; that month Airey Neave, the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army —a rival republican paramilitary group to the IRA—in a car bomb attack in the Palace of Westminster. Neave had been the political mentor and close 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. Thatcher was described by her biographer Jonathan Aitken as being "numb with shock" at the news of his death.
Lord Mountbatten
was a British statesman, Royal Navy officer and cousin to Queen Elizabeth II. He was a member of the prominent Battenberg family, a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, the maternal uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and a second cousin of King George VI. Mountbatten 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 and Singapore 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.Mountbatten had spent thirty years holidaying during the summer at Classiebawn Castle on the Mullaghmore Peninsula near Cliffoney, County Sligo, Ireland. The castle was a country house built for Lord Palmerston and was owned by Lady Mountbatten. Mountbatten kept the cabin cruiser Shadow V, which he used for fishing, in the local harbour; the boat was largely unguarded.
Thomas McMahon and Francis McGirl
, a carpenter who lived in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, was one of the IRA's explosives 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. McMahon was also a suspect in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.McMahon's accomplice was Francis McGirl; he lived in Ballinamore, County Leitrim, where he was a gravedigger. He was the nephew of John Joe McGirl, a former IRA chief of staff.
Build-up and McMahon's actions
Because of his connection to the royal family, the IRA had considered the assassination of Mountbatten since 1970. When asked if he was concerned he could be a target for the IRA, Mountbatten dismissed the threat and insisted on light military and police protection, saying "what would they want with an old man like me?" From the start of the Troubles he was given a twelve-man security detail, which had risen to twenty-eight by 1974. The detail comprised uniformed and plainclothes members of the Garda Síochána, the Irish Special Branch and the British Special Air Service. Mountbatten disliked close security and refused to allow members of his Garda protection detail onto his boat, or to be nearby in a speedboat when he went out fishing.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; 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 INLA, "a counter-coup by the IRA was felt by them to be necessary". 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.
The IRA planned the attack on Mountbatten for several months. While some constructed the bomb, others focused on reconnaissance. They 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. The bombers—which included McMahon—constructed a device containing of gelignite. In 2024 the former IRA commander Michael Hayes stated that he had been the explosives expert who built the bomb, aided by McMahon.
During Mountbatten's 1979 holiday an SAS corporal on his protection detail reported that Shadow V was a soft target that was kept 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 to carry IRA bombs, but no action was taken.
On the night of 26–27 August 1979 the bomb was planted on Shadow V; it contained a radio-controlled detonator and was placed below where Mountbatten was known to sit on board. Several sources state McMahon was the one who planted the device; others say it was McGirl that did so. The two men 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 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.
Assassination
At 11:15 am on 27 August, Mountbatten left Classiebawn Castle and travelled the fifteen minutes to the local harbour where Shadow V was kept. He was accompanied by his daughter Lady Patricia Brabourne, her husband Lord Brabourne, their twin sons Timothy and Nicholas Knatchbull, the twins' paternal grandmother Doreen Knatchbull and Paul Maxwell, a fifteen-year-old from Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, who was working as a boatboy. Police accompanied them from the castle to the boat and then drove to watch them from the nearby clifftop.After ten minutes' sailing the boat reached the lobster pots, where it slowed; Mountbatten was at the helm. As it reached 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 Knatchbull were both killed instantly. Mountbatten's legs were almost completely blown off and he was thrown into the water face down, still alive. 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.
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.
Local fishing boats were quickly at the scene. Mountbatten was still breathing when he was pulled from the water, but died within minutes. 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 and Lady Brabourne were the more serious casualties; they were the first to be operated on. She was operated on through the night, but died from internal injuries and shock the following morning. Lord Brabourne had badly broken legs, which were saved by surgeons. The IRA claimed responsibility five hours after the bombing.