25th anniversary of Mountbatten murder

Today is the 25th anniversary of one of the bloodiest days of the Northern Troubles.

Lord Louis Mountbatten died when an IRA bomb ripped through his boat, Shadow V, while he was fishing off Mullaghmore on the sunny Monday morning, of August 27, 1979.

An estimated fifty pounds of gelignite was planted under the engine of his boat.

Three others died along with the 79-year-old former commander of the Allied Forces in World War Two.

They were Lady Brabourne (82), his eldest daughter’s mother-in-law, his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas, and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Enniskillen.

Patricia Brabourne, her husband John and their other son Timothy were seriously injured but survived.

The killing put the Northern troubles on the world political stage as it came on the same day that the IRA killed 18 paratroopers in two explosions near Warrenpoint, Co Down.

It also caused the cancellation of Pope John Paul’s proposed visit to Armagh over fears for his safety in September 1979.

Lord Mountbatten had been coming to Mullaghmore for almost 30 years and was well-known locally.

He did not have much security because neither Mountbatten nor the police in Britain and Ireland believed that he was in danger.

One man was convicted of his murder.