The World - News from Jan. 4, 1989

The Irish Republican Army issued a veiled threat against Britain’s Royal Family and leading British politicians in a New Year’s message. The IRA message, published in the Irish media, urged supporters to “intensify their reminders to British royalty and political leaders” that 1989 is the 20th anniversary of the deployment of British troops in Northern Ireland and of what it called “British military and political failures” in the country. It added: “For our part, we shall be reminding them as well.” The IRA, fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland, killed Lord Mountbatten, a cousin of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, in 1979 and narrowly missed killing British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984.