'The Crown' Season 4: Were Lord Mountbatten's killers ever caught? Here's why the IRA targeted him
Spoilers for 'The Crown' Season 4 Episode 1
With the fourth season of 'The Crown', the Netflix series does not shy away from beginning with one of the most explosive events to rock the Royal Family in the 20th century – the assassination of Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance) in the very first episode is based on real events and was very much a result of the political tension between Britain and Ireland in a period that is known as the Troubles. The Troubles are described as a low-level war in Northern Ireland against the British occupation of the area as the Irish fought for the right of self-determination.
Mountbatten would often go away to Mullaghmore, County Sligo, a small coastal village in Ireland, where he had a residence. He usually holidayed at his summer home, Classiebawn Castle, in Mullaghmore, which was only 12 miles away from the border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland and near an area known to be used as a cross-border refuge by members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
On the morning of August 27th, 1979, when Mountbatten was on his fishing boat, Shadow V, at the Mullaghmore harbor, the boat exploded. The previous night, IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped onto the unguarded boat and attached a radio-controlled bomb. When Mountbatten and his party had brought the boat just a few hundred yards from the shore, the bomb was detonated. The boat was destroyed by the force of the blast, and Mountbatten's legs were almost blown off. Mountbatten, then aged 79, was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen but died from his injuries before being brought to shore.
According to True Royalty TV, just thirty minutes after the incident, there was a phone call to the Donegal Democrat, a local newspaper, saying that it was the IRA who was responsible for the attack. McMohan had been arrested two hours before the explosion on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. He was tried for the assassinations in the Republic of Ireland and convicted by forensic evidence supplied by Dr. James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder on 23 November 1979 but was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
However, it was not only Thomas McMohan who was responsible for Mountbatten's assassination. Authorities believe the Mountbatten assassination was the work of many people, but McMahon was the only individual convicted. Sentenced to life in prison. Later the same day, the IRA also killed 18 British soldiers in Northern Ireland, 16 of them from the Parachute Regiment, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush -- the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles.
Mountbatten's family never returned to Classiebawn Castle. In May 2015, Prince Charles visited Mullaghmore where he met survivor Timothy Knatchbull and attended a prayer service for peace and reconciliation.
'The Crown' Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.