LONDON – It is often said that funerals can be a time to build bridges, and this is apparently no exception.
A day after the Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, was laid to rest, the leader of Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party that has traditionally been the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, expressed grief over the assassination of 1979 Lord Mountbatten, Prince Philip’s uncle.
“I’m sorry it happened, of course it’s heartbreaking,” Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said on British radio at the weekend in response to a question as to whether she would apologize to Prince Charles.
Mountbatten, who served as a leader in the British army and as the last viceroy of India, was killed by an IRA bomb in Ireland while on a pleasure cruise. The blast also killed three others, including a 14-year-old boy who was Charles’ godson.
The assassination was a major victory for the IRA at the time.
“He was an important member of the British establishment, and from a republican perspective they struck the core of the British establishment and British aristocracy,” said James Calcutt, a researcher on Northern Ireland at the Royal Holloway, University of London, said.
Mountbatten was one of more than 3,600 people killed during the ‘problems’, the 30-year conflict between mostly Protestant ‘union members’ who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK, and mostly Catholic ‘Republicans’ who want to reunite with the Republic. of Ireland. Northern Ireland is politically part of the United Kingdom, but shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland.
The conflict ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, a major US-mediated peace agreement that allows, among other things, the eradication of the militarized Irish border.
In her commentary on Times Radio, McDonald also included the warning that “the army and the armed forces attached to Prince Charles have carried out very, very violent actions on our island.”
However, she added that she “has an absolute commitment and an absolute responsibility to ensure that no family faces it again.” ‘
“And I’m glad to repeat that your queen buried her beloved husband,” she said.
The remarks come as violence has flared up in Northern Ireland in recent weeks, mainly in loyalist areas, caused by growing tensions over trade rules following Brexit for the region. Political leaders on all sides condemned the unrest and called for calm.
McDonald’s apology is seen by experts as more than just an olive branch for the royal family.
“This is another way of showing people in Northern Ireland that the conflict is over, that they have moved on, that they can acknowledge pain, that they can be respectful,” said Edward Burke, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham.
“However, that does not mean that Sinn Fein is renouncing the kind of campaign and the kind of violence that the IRA has visited Britain and Ireland for so many years.”
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Sinn Fein surprised the Irish political establishment in an election in February 2020 by securing more votes than any other party for the first time on a pledge to fix the country’s housing and health systems. However, the country is run by a coalition government and Sinn Fein is in opposition.
The apology was not the only way McDonald reached out to the royal family in the radio interview. She also said that Charles, who said in 2015 that Mountbatten represents the grandfather he never had, wrote to her last year when she was ill with Covid-19 and wished her well.
“I thought it was decent and cool,” she said. “We have the utmost respect for that family, and for who they are and what they represent before the British people, and indeed, perhaps especially, for union members and loyalists here on the island.”
Charles met Sinn Fein’s former leader, Gerry Adams, and especially shook hands in 2015. In 2012, his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, met a historic handshake and shared with former senior Irish Republican Army Commander Martin McGuinness.
Despite the pleasantness, the tension on the island is increasing.
According to Connal Parr, who specializes in Brexit, the talks on the reunification of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland erupted in a way that took place five years ago. Irish history and the problems at Northumbria University.
“The broader political goal is for Sinn Fein to think that trade unionists will hear or see it and say, ‘Oh, sorry, there is some remorse for the attack on the British royal family, in which we passionately believe,’ ‘ he said.
Reuters contributed to this report.