A former IRA commander has confessed he was behind the assassination of Lord Mountbatten in north Sligo in 1979.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Michael Hayes, has claimed that he, not Thomas McMahon, was behind the assassination in Mullaghmore.
Mr. Hayes told the Daily Mail that he was an ex-Irish Republican Army commander and Thomas McMahon’s ‘commanding officer’.
Mr. Hayes, who now lives in Dublin said: “Yes, I blew him up. McMahon put it on his boat … I planned everything, I am commander in chief.”
“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,” he further added.
Thomas McMahon was the only IRA member who was convicted of the crime and was arrested on the day of the blast and was jailed for life but he was released later in 1998 after 19 years in prison under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr. Hayes said that it was he who planned the murder and was able to do so because he was an explosives expert.
Lord Mountbatten was killed when a 50-pound bomb hidden on his fishing vessel Shadow V was detonated.
