Sinn Fein leader Michelle O’Neill reveals she WILL attend the Coronation after receiving an invitation – after Pamela Hicks, the daughter of Charles III’s IRA-slain mentor Lord Mountbatten is denied a place on the guest list
Sinn Fein’s leader in Northern Ireland is to attend the Coronation of King Charles III, she revealed today.
Michelle O’Neill, the party’s deputy president, said she intended to attend the May 6 event in London alongside the Irish president Michael D Higgins.
Ms O’Neill would be in line to become Northern Ireland’s First Minister if the current powersharing impasse is resolved and devolution returns in Belfast. In September, she attended the Queen’s funeral service in London.
In a tweet she said said she accepted an invitation on behalf of Northern Irish people ‘for whom the coronation is a hugely important occasion’.
But her decision and invitation will be seen as highly controversial. Sinn Fein has strong links to the IRA, which murdered Charles III’s mentor Lord Mountbatten of Burma in a 1979 bomb attack.
His daughter, Lady Pamela Hicks received a telephone call from a secretary at Buckingham Palace on her 94th birthday, informing her that she had not been invited.
Michelle O’Neill, the party’s deputy president, said she intended to attend the May 6 event in London alongside the Irish president Michael D Higgins. She is pictured meeting Charles last September.
‘I am committed to being a First Minister for all, representing the whole community, building good relations between the people of these islands, and advancing peace and reconciliation through respectful and mature engagement.’
Sinn Fein has strong links to the IRA, which murdered Charles III’s mentor Lord Mountbatten of Burma in a 1979 bomb attack.
The decorated war hero and last viceroy of India died when the IRA blew up his fishing boat off Mullaghmore in County Sligo, in a blast that also killed his teenaged grandsons and the 83-year-old mother-in-law of his daughter.
His daughter, Lady Pamela Hicks received a telephone call from a secretary at Buckingham Palace on her 94th birthday, informing her that she had not been invited.
Mountbatten was Prince Phillip’s uncle and was close to his great nephew. The King wept at his funeral.
The decorated war hero and last viceroy of India died when the IRA blew up his fishing boat off Mullaghmore in County Sligo, in a blast that also killed his teenaged grandsons and the 83-year-old mother-in-law of his daughter.
The move to attend the coronation is the latest signal of the vastly improved relations between the republican movement and the monarchy since the outset of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
‘I have accepted an invitation to attend the coronation of King Charles III,’ said Ms O’Neill.
‘We are living in a time of great change. A time to respect our differing and equally legitimate aspirations, a time to firmly focus on the future and the opportunities that the next decade will bring.
‘I am an Irish republican. I also recognise there are many people on our island for whom the coronation is a hugely important occasion.
‘I am committed to being a First Minister for all, representing the whole community, building good relations between the people of these islands, and advancing peace and reconciliation through respectful and mature engagement.
‘Therefore, as First Minister Designate, I will join President of Ireland Michael D Higgins, international figures, church leaders, other party leaders and the Assembly Speaker Alex Maskey for the coronation in London.’
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