Tommy McKearney

Tommy McKearney (born 1952) is a former Irish volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army who took part in the 1980 hunger strike.

Background McKearney was born in Lurgan in the north-east of County Armagh, but he was raised in The Moy, a village in the south-east of County Tyrone, just across the River Blackwater from County Armagh. He was born into a family with a long tradition of Irish republicanism. Both his grandfathers had fought in the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence, his maternal grandfather Tom Murray being an Adjutant General in the North Roscommon Brigade.

McKearney lost three of his brothers during the Northern Ireland Troubles. Sean was killed by his own bomb in 1974, Pádraig was killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) in the Loughgall Ambush on 8 May 1987, and Kevin, a non-paramilitary, was murdered by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1992 while working in the family's butcher shop. His sister, Margaret, was the subject of an unsuccessful extradition attempt in 1975, when Scotland Yard described her as "possibly the most dangerous woman terrorist in Britain."

IRA activity On 9 August 1971, the day internment was introduced, McKearney received his A-level results. He had hoped to study at Queen's University Belfast and become a teacher but his results were not good enough to secure entry. He became the brigade's OC during the mid-seventies.

Hunger strike McKearney was involved in the blanket and dirty protests, and took part in the 1980 hunger strike along with other IRA members. Prior to commencing the hunger strike, McKearney told his mother and father:

He spent 53 days on hunger strike, from 27 October to 18 December and, according to a doctor had only a few hours left to live when the strike was called off.

Split from Provisional IRA In 1986, alongside 25 republican prisoners in HM Prison Maze, McKearney split from the Provisional IRA and formed a new organisation called the League of Communist Republicans. McKearney was the main theoretician behind the group, which took on a Marxist-Leninist outlook and analysis of Northern Ireland. McKearney called on the Provisional IRA to either return to a "ground war" against the British state or cease fighting altogether, rather than its strategy at that time of seldom but spectacular attacks. The members of the League believed that the "spectacular" attacks were too often botched, and too often resulted in the deaths of IRA members. The league rejected electoralism and instead called for mass struggle against the British. However, it also made clear this mass struggle must be led by a Vanguard party. He is now a freelance journalist, edits the publication Fourthwrite, and is an organiser for the Independent Workers Union of Ireland.