Thomas McElwee

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**Thomas McElwee**
**Tomás Mac Giolla Bhuidhe**

Paramilitary organisation	PIRA
Date of birth	30 November, 1957
Place of birth	Bellaghy, Co. Londonderry
Hungerstrike started	8 June, 1981
Died	8 August, 1981
Days on strike	62

Thomas McElwee (Irish name: Tomás Mac Giolla Bhuidhe; November 30, 1957 - August 8, 1981) was an Irish republican hunger striker and a Volunteer within the Provisional Irish Republican Army^[1].

At the age of 14 McElwee joined Fianna Eireann, he then joined the South Derry Independent Republican Unit and subsequently joined the Provisionals after the SDIRU was disbanded. In December 1976, McElwee was arrested for a firebomb attack in the town of Ballymena in which McElwee was nearly blinded^[2]. After his recovery he was charged with murder for the death of Yvonne Dunlop a 26 year old Protestant, who was killed when one of the bombs they had planted destroyed her shop^[1], the Alley Katz Boutique. On conviction for her murder, McElwee was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 1977. On appeal his conviction was reduced to manslaughter and his sentence reduced to 20 years. In prison he became involved in the blanket protest. He joined the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike and died on 8 August 1981 at the age of 23 after 62 days of hunger-strike with no company other than prison warders, colleagues of those who had brutalised and tortured him for three-and-a-half years ^[1]. His eight sisters served as his pallbearers.

He was a cousin of fellow hunger striker Francis Hughes, and also a cousin of Father Oliver Crilly, a Catholic priest who attempted to mediate during the strike.

[edit] Media

Thomas McElwee is the main subject of the song "Farewell to Bellaghy", which also mention his cousin Francis Hughes and other members of the South Derry Independent Republican Unit.