Why the royal family took the Irish "troubles" personally

Lord Mountbatten, Great Britain's last viceroy to India, photographed in 1960. He helped introduce Queen Elizabeth to Prince Philip.

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(CBS News)  When Queen Elizabeth II shook hands with Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army commander, in Belfast Wednesday, she was doing more than burying the hatchet for her nation.

She was making the same gesture of forgiveness for her family.

Pictures: Queen Elizabeth II<br> Pictures: The Queen in Ireland
Read More: Historic handshake

Though the conflict between Ireland and Great Britain goes back centuries and has claimed some 3,700 lives in just the last four decades, one of its high-profile victims was a member of the queen's own family.

In 1979, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, was killed by a bomb planted in his yacht, the Shadow V, anchored in the waters off the Irish Republic's County Sligo. The Irish Republican Army took responsibility for the bombing and, experts say McGuinness, 62, was the IRA's chief of staff at the time.

A British statesman and naval officer, Mountbatten was an uncle to the queen's husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinbugh, and a second cousin to the queen. It was Mountbatten who introduced the 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip of Greece, then a cadet at Dartmouth Royal Naval College, in the summer of 1939. Eight years later, the two were married.

Mountbattan also had a role as godfather and mentor to their oldest son, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, who biographers say, was devastated by the assassination.

The prince drew on that experience when he spoke to relatives of the 9/11 victims at a service on the attack's 10th anniversary at the memorial Gardens in Grosvenor Square.

Referring to the 1979 murder of his "greatly loved great uncle" Lord Mountbatten, Prince Charles said, "At the time I remember feeling intense anger, even hatred of those who could even contemplate doing such a thing. But then I began to reflect that all the greatest wisdom that has come down to us over the ages speaks of the overriding need to break the law of cause and effect and somehow to find the strength to search for a more positive way of overcoming the evil in men's hearts."

[sedean1]

I'm sure that many an Irish Catholic was also remembering anger and hatred over the strife in Ireland. One of the things the IRA did was to bring the war to Britain's own shores. I am second generation removed from Ireland and I grew up hearing my parents and grandparents talk of the horrors and hardship under the realm of the British. I'm glad of the peace, it was hard won.

[sarahphillip]

I like reading of interesting facts of what i considder a interest in knowing .Prince Charle in his youth and after he mnet Lady Diana Spencer ,said a thought provoking comment.That speaks of his eternal hearts spirit and jabs the wicked witch in it's thunder.So i believe what Charles had with Diana was a love and genuine truth.His affect on the lord Mountbaccen loss was deeply heartful and centering to his path,with a lady who got hurt and couldn't find her husband and sword for which she used to fight the witches...Charles could over come the loss and find the beauty he has warrent against the evil he spoke ...