On this day, Nov. 23, in 1979, Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon was sentenced to life in prison for the bombing that killed Lord Louis Mountbatten and three others. The bombing happened on Aug. 27, 1979, when McMahon and other IRA members detonated a bomb that they hid on Mountbatten’s fishing vessel. The assassination was the first IRA strike against the British royal family.
McMahon was an expert bomb-maker for the IRA. It’s believed others participated in the Mountbatten attack, but he was the only person convicted.
He was sentenced to life behind bars but was released in 1998 as part of the Northern Ireland peace agreement known as the Good Friday Agreement.
— Emily Babay
