What’s ironic about this, of course, is that the apology is for the killing of Lord Mountbatten, who, as Lord High Admiral and First Sea Lord, was probably a legitimate military target, if you subscribe to the view that the IRA was fighting a war, as McDonald presumably does.
Where’s the apology for killing Nicholas Knatchbull and Paul Maxwell, 14 and 15 years old respectively, and the latter a Sligo native, with the same bomb?
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said she is “sorry” the IRA killed Lord Mountbatten in 1979.
Ms McDonald described the assassination – in which three others including two children were killed – as “heartbreaking”. She was speaking a day after the funeral of Britain’s Prince Philip, husband to Queen Elizabeth II and nephew of Mountbatten.
Asked on Britain’s Times Radio if she would apologise personally to Prince Charles for the attack, she replied: “The army and the armed forces associated with Prince Charles carried out many, many violent actions on our island. And I can say, of course, I am sorry that that happened.”
To some extent, and to be fair to her, McDonald can’t win here. She has acted, in the aftermath of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, with commendable grace and open-mindedness, and (let’s be honest, against the instincts of many of her own supporters) genuinely tried to reach out to the Unionist and British community on the island. This apology is also in that spirit, and it would be churlish and tribal not to recognise that.
It’s also important to note that this is an apology of genuine significance: The murder of Mountbatten was probably the only time (the failure at Brighton aside) when the IRA managed to strike a blow right at the heart of the British establishment. Mountbatten was as close to the Royal Family and the present Queen as anybody has been, over the last century, and his murder is believed to have grieved the family very deeply. For that reason, of course, it was also the act of which many militant republicans were most proud – “we got 18 and mountbatten”, and all that.
But ultimately, it’s very questionable how much impact any of this stuff has. It sort of plays into the notion, doesn’t it, that if Republicanism reaches out to Unionism and concedes that some bad things happened, Unionism will wake up one morning and decide that it is comfortable with a United Ireland. On that note, this tweet from Ulster Unionist, and all-around decent egg, David Moore, caught my attention at the weekend:
I don’t care how much the Irish government bleats about making unionists feel comfortable in their mythical United Ireland. I don’t care if there are a million ‘shared island’ committees. I’m not giving this up. This is my country and it’s spectacular. pic.twitter.com/zrEdM5DE2E
— David Moore (@belfastDGM) April 17, 2021
We tend to forget, in all the discussions about a United Ireland, that unionism is actually mainly comprised of people who really value being British. Much as the IRA campaign may have made them actively hostile to Republicanism, it’s not as if their desire to be British would be any the lesser if John Hume and Seamus Mallon had been the sole wing of Republicanism in Northern Ireland for the past 50 years. At the end of the day, you’re not a Republican or a Nationalist or a Unionist or a loyalist because of something other people did. It’s just about which country you identify with. And that reality makes much of the United Ireland talk pointless bluster.
Much was made, too, of this gesture by the President of Ireland on Saturday:
The tricolour flying at half mast at Áras an Uachtaráin today, to mark the death of Britain's Prince Philip. pic.twitter.com/wVWlQnSMes
— President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) April 17, 2021
Again, to be fair, it’s clearly well-intentioned, and an attempt to build bridges to, and show respect for, the Unionist community on the island, as well as our nearest neighbours. But, like McDonald’s apology over Mountbatten, it probably alienated more Republicans than it swayed Unionists towards the idea of a United Ireland. To them, it was a nice gesture from a neighbour. For many in the Republic, it’s considered a necessary sacrifice to convince our neighbour to move in with us. The fundamental goals here, both in McDonald’s apology, and the President’s flag-dipping, are relatively transparent. And the problem is that if we can see that, then unionism can see it too. Being a good neighbour is appreciated, no doubt, but It doesn’t mean they’re going to want a house-share.
It is forty two years, this year, since Mountbatten, and those two innocent boys, met their ends at the hands of an IRA bomber. We should be very grateful, of course, that those days are behind us, and we should also recognise McDonald’s grace and political courage in delivering an apology for it. But the fact that it’s such a significant move, four decades after the event, should also remind us how raw the emotions around it, and all of the other atrocities, on both sides, still are. We should also remember that a United Ireland is not simply about being nice to Unionists, and hoping that they’ll suddenly see the benefits of a United Ireland. Many of them will have to be forced into such a country, against their will. We should hope, and if we’re the praying kinds, pray, that that doesn’t cost more young boys dearly in the decades to come.