Time.news – The president of Sinn Fein has apologized for the murder of Lord Mountbatten at the hands of the IRA: and these are the first such explicit apologies from a party leader who has long been the political showcase of the Northern Irish paramilitary group . The apology came in the aftermath of the funeral of Prince Philip, who was the grandson of Lord Mountbatten. Mary Lou McDonald apologized for the “heartbreaking” attack“.
Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, who was very close to the prince and his son Charles, was assassinated in the midst of the conflict in Northern Ireland between republicans and unionists: The Ira blew up his fishing boat in the village of Mullaghmore, County Sligowhile on vacation at his summer residence, Classiebawn Castle.
“Of course I’m sorry what happened. It was heartbreaking,” said Mary Lou McDonald, interviewed on Times Radio. Before her, Gerry Adams, who led Sinn Fein until 2018, had always been careful not to say sorry: he expressed regret but insisted that Lord Mountbatten “knew the dangers” of going as far as Ireland.
The attack
On board the Shadow V, destroyed by the attack of the Ira, there were him, the twin sons of Louis’s daughter, Patricia, her husband John Knatchbull and the latter’s mother, a lady of just over eighty. years. To complete the crew, a local boy who performs the functions of sailor and ship’s boy, Paul Maxwell. In addition to Lord Mountbatten, his nephew Nicholas and the young ship’s boy died instantly. The following day the elderly Baroness Brabourne also died of her injuries.
L‘explosive, over twenty kilos, had been planted the night before by a commando of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. On the same day the IRA claimed responsibility for the “execution” and in Warrenpoint, County Down, it detonated two bombs, about half an hour apart, killing eighteen British soldiers.
Carlo was that day fishing in Iceland. “There was nothing for which Carlo did not consult Mountbatten – writes the biographer Nicholas Davies – Shocked and destroyed by grief, upon hearing the news, he went away in solitude, for a walk. A friend found him sitting in front of a fjord, sobbing like a baby. Never before had he suffered such severe emotional loss. During the funeral, he uttered the following words: “Without the heroism of people like Lord Mountbatten, this country and many others like it could still be subject to foreign power today, deprived of the freedom that today seems so obvious to us. Perhaps the way in which he died will serve to make us aware of the vulnerability of civilized peoples who have chosen to live in democracy, towards extremisms that have nothing human in them ”.
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