Prince Charles To Meet Gerry Adams In Ireland

Prince Charles will meet Gerry Adams later after the Sinn Fein leader accepted his invitation to an event in Galway.

Three years after the Queen made her historic visit to Ireland, the heir to the throne is embarking upon his first official tour of the country.

Her Majesty shook hands with Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, but no member of the Royal Family has ever met Mr Adams, his party leader.

Sinn Fein confirmed both Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness will meet the Prince during his four-day stay in Ireland.

Declan Kearney, chair of the party, said: "This was agreed to promote the process of resolving past injustices and promoting reconciliation and healing."

Sky News has learnt that the invitation from Charles came after Mr Adams requested a meeting during the visit.

It will be a very personal pilgrimage when Prince Charles later visits the scene of his great-uncle's murder on the west coast of Ireland.

The IRA killed Lord Mountbatten in 1979 by remotely detonating a bomb on his fishing boat at Mullaghmore in County Sligo.

Louis Mountbatten was a cousin of the Queen, an uncle of Prince Philip and a father figure and mentor to Prince Charles.

Peter Power, a local fisherman and tour guide, said: "It has to be terribly emotional for him.

"It is emotional for the total community. That's why you'll find very few people want to talk to you.

"It might have happened 35 years ago but it's still very, very raw in everybody's memory."

Lord Mountbatten of Burma was Admiral of the Fleet, the last Viceroy of India, a man at the heart of the establishment.

He was a godson of Queen Victoria. The IRA never came closer to the British monarchy in 40 years of the Troubles.

Three others were killed alongside him - his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, Nicholas' paternal grandmother, the Dowager Lady Brabourne, and Paul Maxwell, their local boat boy.

Liam Carey, who had worked as Lord Mountbatten's boat boy himself, said there was tremendous shock and disbelief in Mullaghmore.

"They just couldn't believe that such a terrible act could take place in a relatively quiet seaside place that nobody knew much about at all but then the whole world knew about it," he said.

Within hours, another IRA bomb had claimed the lives of 18 British soldiers at Narrow Water, Warrenpoint, in Northern Ireland.

Prince Charles will attend a service of peace and reconciliation at the church where the poet WB Yeats is buried.

Sister Kathleen Rooney from the Sisters of Mercy, Mullaghmore, said: "We all need healing. Somehow we are all human. We are all on the journey together.

"He happens to be a prince and we happen to be ordinary people but together, somehow or other, our common humanity binds us together."

The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall will end their four-day tour with a series of engagements in Northern Ireland.