09 August 2007

Ides of August

Classiebawn Castle, County Sligo


It should be languid and it should be at peace. Global warming only makes the languor of the heat that much more compelling. August should be for holidays, but it is not.

There is a hot war on, and there are bombs going off daily, even if the American surge is tipping things toward some sort of order. The Jihadis are desperate to continue to maintain their profile of menace, and there is Iranian technology and Saudi money swirling in the mix.

The ides of August are almost upon us. I would rather be sitting at the shore, or the Lake, but that is not going to happen this year, for a variety of perfectly good if unpleasant reasons. The ides mark the partition of what had been the British Raj on the sub-continent into the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India.

We will take a little trip down that road in the next few days, since this is a round-number year, sixty years from the middle of that hot month. There there is so much unresolved from that event that is stirring still, all the way up to the Tribal regions of Waziristan. Some of the fires that were smoldering then, part of a regional catastrophe, are burning brightly now.

Or detonating. August is a month for that. The last Viceroy of India was the one who was responsible for the lines that were drawn across the old Raj, even if he did not do them all personally. He was so painfully wrong about so many things, though perhaps it is a function of the times rather than the man. He was illustrious, and widely known as a hero.

The Right Honourable The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, visited The Empire Club in Toronto in 1967 to give a speech.

“I have a place in Eire, Classiebawn Castle in County Sligo, and I and my family could not be treated with greater friendship by the Irish.” He said that at the Empire Club in Toronto in 1967, I might have heard the words on the Canadian Broadcasting Company outlet in Detroit. Channel 9 was mainstream television media for us there, just across the river. The most powerful AM radio station was “CKLW, 80,000 watts of Power!”

There were those in the audience who looked at the courtly statesman coldly, still blaming him for the failed raid across the Channel at Dieppe. Thousands of Canadian boys died in the debacle, and there were those who never forgave him for this role in the planning process.

Others were of the same mind. Lord Mountbatten continued to holiday at his estate each August, and 1979 was no exception. The locals rarely paid attention, except those who helped to maintain the estate. Most simply noted if the family flag was flying on the castle.

You can't blame him for liking County Sligo as a retreat. The skyline is dominated by the brooding crags of Ben Bulben hill, and the castle overlooks the rugged cliffs and bare Innishmurray Island. Ancient tombs mark the habitation of Sligo for thousands of years, and Spanish sailors were washed ashore here from the destroyed Armada.

In the 17th century the Confiscation of Connaught was put into effect and the land divided up as payment among the Cromwellian adventurers and soldiers. The two main beneficiaries in Sligo were the Gore-Booth family of Lissadell who were given 32,000 acres, and Sir John Temple, Master of the Rolls in Ireland under Charles 1st, who was granted 12,000 acres. Rents were collected by Local representatives and forwarded to the family seat in Hampshire, England. The first owner to actually set foot on the conquered lands of north Sligo was Henry John Temple, the third Third Viscount Palmerston. He arrived by horse and carriage in 1808.

This Lord Palmerston was responsible for the fine stonework in the harbor along with some the policies that drove the Irish Diaspora that swept my people to America.

It was in August of 1979 that the Lord and a small family party went down to the harbor where his boat, Shadow V, was docked below the excellent seawall. It was a fine little boat, wood construction and thirty feet long. Someone had drilled holes in the bottom to sink it in past seasons, but the matter was viewed as simple vandalism.

The morning of the 27th dawned fresh and clear, a welcome change from the fog of the previous days. His Lordship decided to take the Dowager Baroness Brabourne, grandson the Honorable Nicholas Knatchbull and fifteen-year-old Paul Maxwell yachting in celebration.

Mullaghmore is located near the village of Bundoran, which was also a popular holiday retreat for members of the Irish Republican Army.

They were aware of Mountbatten's movements, and the police of the Free State knew they were there. They warned his Lordship, but he politely declined to alter his life. Lord Mountbatten never had a bodyguard. He viewed the local police watch on Classiebawn castle in August to be sufficient. As he said, the friendship of the Irish people was enough.

His Lordship's boat was unguarded in the public dock in Mullaghmore.

On that morning, Shadow V was proceeding to Dongeal Bay to catch the fresh breezes. A man from the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army was watching from the headlands. As Shadow V passed, he pressed the remote control of a radio device coupled to fifty pounds of gelignite planted under the engine.

Shadow V was blown to splinters, along with the yachting party. Seven went in the water, and His Lordship's legs were nearly severed. He was fished from the water, but died soon after. Also dead were Lady Brabourne, grandson Nicholas and Paul Maxwell. Patricia Brabourne, her husband John and their other son Timothy were seriously injured but survived.

That same day, two bombs killed eighteen men of the Parachute Regiment in Warrenpoint, on the Ulster side of the Irish Border.

Later, the IRA issued a statement that read: "This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country."

The August murders marked the start of another bloody chapter in the story of the partition of a nation. But it was not the first partition in which Lord Mountbatten had been involved, and it was not the bloodiest, not by a long ways.

We will talk a little more about that tomorrow, if the events of this August permit, and of the Ghost Trains of the Punjab.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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