Memorials were held today to mark the 40th anniversary of one of the bloodiest days of The Troubles, a day when Lord Louis Mountbatten was among 23 people killed.
A service overlooking Mullaghmore harbour in Co Sligo remembered Mountbatten, 79, his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, 14, Lady Doreen Brabourne, 83, and Paul Maxwell, 15, who died when the IRA blew up the boat they were on.
And at Narrow Water, near Warrenpoint in Co Down, more than 200 people gathered to remember 18 soldiers killed there by two IRA bombs, and a civilian shot dead by soldiers, on that same day.
At Mullaghmore, on a clifftop above the scene of the Mountbatten attack, Paul Maxwell’s parents John Maxwell and Mary Hornsey and their daughter Lisa McKean laid a wreath for the teenager, who was working on the boat.
Later, as the family watched from the front row, Church of Ireland archdeacon Isaac Hanna said: “Today is about rededicating ourselves to the cause of justice, the cause of reconciliation and the cause of freedom, so no person should have to go through what you have gone through.”
After the service, Mary said: “I feel privileged to be here with all these people, to hear their singing and words of comfort, and to meet people who were here on that day.”
At the Warrenpoint memorial, survivors of the attack were among those present for the service and wreath-laying on the banks of the Newry River.
After the IRA had detonated the bombs from the other side of the river, William Hudson, 29, a civilian visiting from London, was hit by a bullet fired by soldiers targeting the para-militaries.
Graham Eve, a former member of the Parachute Regiment which lost 16 men that day, told of the horror of bagging up body parts after the attacks, and urged Northern Ireland’s politicians to work together to get devolved government restored.
He said: “Why are they still arguing, why is there so much hatred... let’s move forward.”
“People ask you what it was like at Narrow Water, I could tell you what it was like, but you still wouldn’t have an idea of what it was like,” he said.
“But you grow older, you get grandchildren and you realise, ‘hey, let’s put this behind us and move forward for the children’, some of my colleagues might think differently, but I’m not bitter at all now.
“What I am bitter at now is the politics of the country and why we still haven’t got this sorted out.
“I appreciate the history of the past, that’s the problem, it’s the past, let’s forget about the word past and let’s move forward. Please.
“I am not going to die a bitter man, I have no bitterness in me.”
