IRA bombmaker claims he was behind Lord Mountbatten’s assassination

An Irish Republican Army bombmaker has claimed he was behind the assassination of Lord Louis Mountbatten.

The King’s great-uncle was murdered when the IRA blew up his lobster boat during a holiday in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in August 1979.

Thomas McMahon was arrested on the day of the attack and jailed for life until he was released under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

However, Michael Hayes, who is in his 70s and is also a chief suspect in the Birmingham pub bombing in 1974 which resulted in the deaths of 21 people, has now claimed McMahon “was only a participant”.

Hayes, who lives in Dublin, said: “I am an explosives expert, I am renowned. I was trained in Libya. I trained there as an explosives expert.”

Michael Hayes has claimed he made the bomb that killed Lord Mountbatten in 1979. Photo / Screenshot

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on his claims, which were made to the Mail on Sunday.

When asked by the newspaper if he designed the bomb used on Lord Mountbatten’s boat, Hayes said: “Yes, I blew him up. McMahon put it on his boat ... I planned everything, I am commander in chief.”

He added: “I blew up Earl Mountbatten in Sligo, but I had a justification, he’d come to my country ... Look at the famine? Are we to forget that? The Black and Tans? He came to my country and murdered my people and I fought back. I hit them back.”

Lord Mountbatten was a cousin to the Queen and a mentor to Prince Charles and uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Lord Louis Mountbatten's coffin, London, UK, on August 28, 1979. Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was assassinated by IRA member Thomas McMahon. Photo / Getty

In 2015, Charles made a pilgrimage to the site of Lord Mountbatten’s murder in Mullaghmore, Ireland. The attack also killed his teenage grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old deckhand. Lady Brabourne, who was also on the boat, died the next day. The others on board survived.

Hayes was named at an inquest in 2019 into the Birmingham Pub bombings.

He previously gave an interview to the BBC in which he said he took “collective responsibility” for the IRA’s attacks on the British mainland, including the explosions in the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs in Birmingham.

More than 3500 people were killed during The Troubles which lasted for about 30 years before the Good Friday Agreement brought in power-sharing self-government for Northern Ireland amid ceasefires and paramilitary disarmament.