On 23 November 1979, an IRA member accused of Mountbatten’s murder was convicted. Thomas McMahon, a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), was sentenced to life in prison for planting a bomb that killed Lord Louis Mountbatten and three others three months earlier.
Lord Mountbatten was assassinated on August 27, 1979. When McMahon and other IRA terrorists detonated a 50-pound bomb hidden on their fishing boat Shadow V. Mountbatten was a World War II hero, a leading statesman and second cousin of the Queen Elizabeth II. He was spending the day with his family in Donegal Bay, on the northwest coast of Ireland.
Mountbatten was bombed along with the ship.
When the bomb exploded. Mountbatten’s 14-year-old grandson Nicholas, along with three other people, died in the attack. Later that day, 18 British paratroopers were also killed in an IRA ground bomb attack in County Down, Northern Ireland. Mountbatten’s murder was the IRA’s first attack on the British royal family during its long terrorist campaign to expel the British from Northern Ireland and unify it with the Republic of Ireland in the south.
The explosion was done with remote control.
This attack sparked hatred against the IRA in the hearts of many Britons and convinced Margaret Thatcher’s government to take a tough stance against the terrorist organization. The IRA immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on Mountbatten, saying it had detonated the bomb by remote control from the coast. He also claimed responsibility for a bombing raid against British troops in County Down on the same day, in which 18 people lost their lives.
McMahon had killed more than 100 British soldiers
IRA member Thomas McMahon was later arrested and convicted for his role in the Mountbatten bombing. A legend in the IRA, he was the leader of the IRA’s infamous South Armagh Brigade, which killed over 100 British soldiers. He was one of the first IRA members sent to Libya to study detonators and timing devices and was an expert in explosives.
Murder accused later released
Authorities believe Mountbatten’s murder was the work of several people, but McMahon was the only person convicted. After being sentenced to life in prison, he was released in 1998, along with other IRA and unionist terrorists, under a controversial provision of the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland peace agreement. McMahon claimed that he had turned his back on the IRA and was going to become a carpenter.
important events
On November 23, 1936, the first issue of Life was published, a magazine with a strong identity in photojournalism.
On November 23, 1937, the country’s well-known scientist, Jagadish Chandra Bose, died.
On November 23, 1946, six thousand people died in a fire on a French navy ship in the city of Haiphong, Vietnam.
