Tommy McKearney (born 1952, Lurgan, Northern Ireland[1]) is an Irish republican, socialist, and former hunger striker and volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.[2][3]
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McKearney was born into a family with a long republican tradition. Both his grandfathers had fought in the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence, his maternal grandfather Tom Murray was an Adjutant General in the North Roscommon Brigade.[2][4] McKearney has lost three of his brothers during the Troubles. Sean was killed by his own bomb in 1974, Pádraig was killed by the SAS in Loughgall in 1987, and Kevin, a non-paramilitary, was killed by Loyalists in 1992 while working in the family's butcher shop.[5]
On 9 August 1971, the day internment without trial was introduced, McKearney received his A-level results.[6] McKearney had hoped to study at Queen's University Belfast and become a teacher but his results were not good enough to secure entry.[6] McKearney describes the introduction of internment as "the straw that broke the camel's back" and decided to join the IRA, becoming a member of the East Tyrone Brigade.[7][8] He became the brigade's Officer Commanding during the mid seventies.[7] On 19 October 1977 he was arrested and charged with the murder of Stanley Adams, a postman and part-time Ulster Defence Regiment member. McKearney was interrogated for seven days under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and claims to have been ill-treated while in custody. McKearney later received a life sentence with a recommended minimum term of twenty years for the murder of Adams, after a statement which he never signed was accepted by the court on the word of a Royal Ulster Constabulary Inspector.[9]
McKearney was involved in the blanket and dirty protests, then took part in the 1980 hunger strike, along with fellow IRA members Brendan Hughes, Raymond McCartney, Tom McFeeley, Sean McKenna, Leo Green, and Irish National Liberation Army member John Nixon.[10] Prior to commencing the hunger strike, McKearney told his mother and father:
| “ | I'll put all my cards on the table. I'm going on hunger strike. If and when I die, I want to be brought back to Roscommon and be buried alongside my "Granda" . . . Don't let people try to influence you, your only friends will be the Republican Movement. If I die, never let the family be ashamed. If I die, I'll die in the knowledge that my life was for the cause and for the other boys here. If at my funeral the press say, "See how the IRA let your son die", just say, "My son died as an Irish soldier, not a British criminal".[11] | ” |
McKearney 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.[12]
McKearney was released from prison in 1993, having served 16 years of his sentence.[5] In 2003 he appeared in the BBC documentary Life After Life with former Ulster Volunteer Force prisoner Billy Mitchell.[13] He now works as a freelance journalist, edits the publication Fourthwrite, and is an organiser for the Independent Workers Union of Ireland.[14]