Thomas McElwee

Thomas " Tom" McElwee (Irish Tomás Mac Giolla Bhuidhe, born November 30, 1957 in Bellaghy, County Derry; † August 8, 1981 in the Maze Prison ) was a member of the IRA and hunger striker.

Tom McElwee was his cousin Francis Hughes involved quite early in the Northern Ireland conflict. Both joined the Fianna Eireann in and actively participated in a first of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA ) independent group in attacks on British and loyalist troops before they were recruited by the IRA.

In 1976, he was, his brother Benedict and various other members of the IRA injured in the premature detonation of an explosive device carried near Ballymena, where McElwee lost his right eye.

As a result of this failed attack McElwee and the others were arrested and blamed for another bomb attack in Ballymena, which occurred on the same day and in which a young Protestant woman died.

The verdict was eventually to life imprisonment, but was later reduced to a 20- year prison sentence.

During his detention, he took first at the Blanket protest in part and, later, from June 7, 1981, the famous hunger strike in 1981, as a result he died after 62 days without food at the age of only 23 years.