Monday 27 August 1979, a Bank Holiday, was a gloriously sunny day. After days of rain, Dickie Mountbatten and some of his family, enjoying their annual August holiday at his holiday home, Classiebawn Castle near the village of Cliffoney, County Sligo, in the Republic of Ireland, had decided at breakfast to go out in their 29-foot fishing boat, Shadow V, moored a mile away at Mullaghmore Harbour, to lift the lobster pots they had set the previous day.
At 11.30am, Mountbatten boarded Shadow V along with his daughter Patricia and her film-producer husband, John; John’s mother, Doreen Knatchbull, Lady Brabourne; and Patricia’s 14-year-old twins, Nicholas and Timothy, together with 15-year-old Paul Maxwell (who holidayed in the village and helped with the boat). With two Garda detectives following the progress of the boat through binoculars from the shore, the boat cleared the harbour wall and headed for the open bay. Mountbatten, standing tall at the wheel, opened the throttle to gain speed. Also watching the progress of the boat through binoculars were another two pairs of eyes – belonging to members of the Provisional IRA.
At 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. Fifty pounds of gelignite exploded, sending showers of timber, metal, cushions, lifejackets and shoes into the air. Then, there was a deadly silence.
