#Inclr dickie mountbatten trial#

Mountbatten had been an IRA target since the early 1960s and there had been several attempts to kill him in the past. Read more: Did Mountbatten really leave 500 pages of instructions for his funeral?.It is believed the assassination team actually comprised six people, including several women as watchers, but there has never been sufficient evidence to charge them. He was crushed to death by a tractor in a mysterious accident in 1995. McMahon served 19 years before being released under the Good Friday Agreement, while McGirl was released as there was insufficient evidence to convict. The evidence against them was circumstantial – the men had traces of gelignite on them and McMahon had specks of green paint from Shadow V. The two men, who had been acting suspiciously, had been taken in for questioning at a routine road check even before the explosion.

#Inclr dickie mountbatten trial#

On 5 November the trial of Thomas McMahon, aged 31, one of the Provisional IRA’s most experienced bombmakers, and Francis McGirl, aged 24, a known PIRA activist, opened. (Photo by David Levenson/Fox Photos/Getty Images) That evening, he wrote in his journal “Life will never be the same now that he has gone.”Ĭharles, Prince of Wales, reads at the memorial service for Lord Mountbatten at St Paul's Cathedral. Prince Charles, who regarded Mountbatten as his ‘honorary grandfather’, was told the news while fishing in Iceland. Netflix’s The Crown: the real history behind the royal drama.

The Provisional IRA, admitting responsibility for the attack, released a statement: “This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country.” Eighteen British soldiers were killed and six were seriously injured, making it the deadliest attack on the British Army during The Troubles. There was further carnage that afternoon when the IRA ambushed a British Army convoy and then also the troops sent to reinforce it just over 100 miles away on the Irish border at Warrenpoint. Siblings: Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark (mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh) Queen Louise of Sweden and George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven Married to: Edwina Ashley, supposedly the richest heiress in the world on her marriage in 1922Ĭhildren: Patricia Knatchbull, who was allowed to inherit her father’s title, and Lady Pamela Hicks However, as a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, Mountbatten was also a distant cousin of Queen Elizabeth II Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was Mountbatten’s sister. Lord Mountbatten was the uncle of the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip. Parents: Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Who was Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma? Born: 25 June 1900, WindsorĬareer highlights: Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia (1943–46), last Viceroy of India (1947), first Governor-General of the Dominion of India (1947–48) and Chief of the Defence Staff (1959–65)

Read more: Lord Mountbatten: Did Prince Philip’s uncle attempt to lead a coup against Harold Wilson’s government?.

He had been killed instantly together with Nicholas and Paul – Doreen later died of her wounds. Mountbatten’s body, his legs severed and most of his clothes ripped off in the blast, except for a fragment of his long-sleeved jersey with the badge of HMS Kelly on the front, was found floating face downwards in the water. Fifty pounds of gelignite exploded, sending showers of timber, metal, cushions, lifejackets and shoes into the air. (Photo by Ralph Crane/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)Īt exactly 11.45am, just as their boat reached the lobster pots, a few hundred yards away on the cliff top overlooking the bay, the PIRA team pressed the button which activated the bomb they had planted on the boat, moored in the bay, the night before. Dickie Mountbatten and some of his family at his holiday home, Classiebawn Castle, c1963.