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| Bobby Tohill 2025 |
The first time was when he was charged with causing an explosion in the Divis Flats in Belfast on 17 July 1973 which killed two British soldiers and severely injured two. Tohill was arrested eight days later, but maintained his innocence, insisting that he had been at the time in Dunville Park with two Syracuse University students, Joan V. Motyka and Susan K. Fry, who at the time were freelance journalists for the North American Newspaper Alliance in Belfast.
The trial of Bobby Tohill concluded on 7 March 1974 with a verdict of not guilty: Justice Basil Kelly, a former attorney general of Northern Ireland, said he could not be sure of Bobby’s guilt and found him innocent on all counts. Less than ten weeks after his acquittal, on 15 May 1974 Bobby Tohill was interned, imprisoned without charge or trial in Cage 3, Hut 22, Long Kesh. This was to be one of his many prison experiences rooted in injustice.
About ten years later Tohill was at the forefront of the struggle against the corrupt supergrass system which had him imprisoned from 1982 to 1986. After a 102 days show trial – at the time the longest in Northern Ireland’s legal history and one of the most expensive ones - in which 27 defendants faced a total of 198 charges on the sole word of renegade INLA member Harry Kirkpatrick - Tohill was jailed for life by Justice Carswell for killing a UDR soldier in 1981. On 18 December 1985, immediately following his conviction, Tohill who at the time was 26 years old and referred to by his prison number “1337 HM Prison Crumlin Road Belfast” announced the start of a hunger strike:
About ten years later Tohill was at the forefront of the struggle against the corrupt supergrass system which had him imprisoned from 1982 to 1986. After a 102 days show trial – at the time the longest in Northern Ireland’s legal history and one of the most expensive ones - in which 27 defendants faced a total of 198 charges on the sole word of renegade INLA member Harry Kirkpatrick - Tohill was jailed for life by Justice Carswell for killing a UDR soldier in 1981. On 18 December 1985, immediately following his conviction, Tohill who at the time was 26 years old and referred to by his prison number “1337 HM Prison Crumlin Road Belfast” announced the start of a hunger strike:
As from tomorrow I shall be on a hunger strike to the death, as will the rest of the defendants, to prove our innocence and to prove the blatant injustice to our people.
Tohill started the hunger strike on 19 December 1985 and others would join the protest one by one on each succeeding week. Tohill, Gerard Steenson and Thomas ‘Ta’ Power broke their fast on 6 January 1986 after refusing food for 19, 12 and 5 days, respectively. Officials said Tohill gave up first and the other two followed. By December 1986, 24 of the 27 people convicted on the evidence provided by Kirkpatrick including Tohill had their convictions overturned.
Fast forward 40 years later and Bobby Tohill feels that he is very near to the end of his life. He is physically unwell and believes that he has not much longer to live. For this reason he says that it is imperative for him to make a couple of important points public when we meet on 17 September 2025. He speaks with the authority of someone who committed most of his life, both as a young person and as an adult, to the republican struggle. What he has to say today is still “to prove the blatant injustice to our people" as he did in 1985. Tohill feels the need to speak out, as many of his comrades are no longer alive and cannot speak for themselves. This is not about speaking about a number of colourful anecdotes of the struggles of the past, but rather an ethical imperative as well as a personal one as his days are counted.
Fast forward 40 years later and Bobby Tohill feels that he is very near to the end of his life. He is physically unwell and believes that he has not much longer to live. For this reason he says that it is imperative for him to make a couple of important points public when we meet on 17 September 2025. He speaks with the authority of someone who committed most of his life, both as a young person and as an adult, to the republican struggle. What he has to say today is still “to prove the blatant injustice to our people" as he did in 1985. Tohill feels the need to speak out, as many of his comrades are no longer alive and cannot speak for themselves. This is not about speaking about a number of colourful anecdotes of the struggles of the past, but rather an ethical imperative as well as a personal one as his days are counted.
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| Bobby Tohill Belfast late 1960s |
Tohill comes from the Lower Falls in Belfast. This for him is very important as he identifies with the experiences people from that area have gone through. He very much sees himself as being a “man of the people”. Whatever he got involved in was motivated by the concrete experience of growing up in this nationalist working class area, not by Second Dáil legitimism. He identifies strongly with the nationalist working class in which he was born and raised. It was for them he fought, not the lawful government of the Second Dáil. His commitment was more community driven than ideologically committed.
Bobby says he vividly remembers the civil rights demonstrations, the 1969 pogroms and the burning of Bombay Street and the attacks on Dover Street in which he lived. The experience of repression also had a decisive impact. Out of the eight brothers in his family, two were interned and two were sentenced to prison as a result of the conflict. It was the experience of feeling his community under attack that motivated him to get involved in the struggle. The main success of this struggle is to have brought down Stormont and secured nationalists no longer to be treated as second class citizens. Its failure is that following the 1998 Agreement British rule in Ireland has been reinforced.
In West Belfast, the place in which Tohill lives, a majority of the population has no living memory of the experiences he went through. From the perspective of the young people today, these years are as distant as those of the second world war were for people in the 1990s. This brings up a number of issues. How can Tohill transmit his experience? How can future generations benefit from what he lived through? One thing he stresses is that return to an armed campaign is not possible in the present circumstances. There is no sufficient support for physical force republicanism to be sustainable, and armed campaigns can be criticized for their strategic futility. More generally, the social forces that had been the driving force of civil rights, hunger strike protests have collapsed and disappeared. There is an exhaustion of political militancy. Bobby agrees with Brendan Hughes’ point that people are not just war sick, they are politics sick. At least during the war the politics had some substance, now they have none. He is sorry for the “waste of lives” that resulted from the conflict and does not want present and future generations to experience the pain those who grew up during the conflict endured.
Bobby Tohill agrees with this writer that it is more accurate to speak of a “pacification” process than a “peace” process – violence has ended but the situation since 1998 is not based on justice, truth or equality. Tohill says the pacification process “generated a monster”. British rule has been strengthened as the British government’s 2024 command paper Safeguarding The Union shows. He points to the bad social and economic conditions under which his people live have deteriorated since 1998. Bobby’s father Michael was not employed, having been unfit to work because of acute arthritis in his knees, and his mother Bernadette struggled to find the means to raise up a large family. Today many similarly experience material depravation.
In West Belfast, the place in which Tohill lives, a majority of the population has no living memory of the experiences he went through. From the perspective of the young people today, these years are as distant as those of the second world war were for people in the 1990s. This brings up a number of issues. How can Tohill transmit his experience? How can future generations benefit from what he lived through? One thing he stresses is that return to an armed campaign is not possible in the present circumstances. There is no sufficient support for physical force republicanism to be sustainable, and armed campaigns can be criticized for their strategic futility. More generally, the social forces that had been the driving force of civil rights, hunger strike protests have collapsed and disappeared. There is an exhaustion of political militancy. Bobby agrees with Brendan Hughes’ point that people are not just war sick, they are politics sick. At least during the war the politics had some substance, now they have none. He is sorry for the “waste of lives” that resulted from the conflict and does not want present and future generations to experience the pain those who grew up during the conflict endured.
Bobby Tohill agrees with this writer that it is more accurate to speak of a “pacification” process than a “peace” process – violence has ended but the situation since 1998 is not based on justice, truth or equality. Tohill says the pacification process “generated a monster”. British rule has been strengthened as the British government’s 2024 command paper Safeguarding The Union shows. He points to the bad social and economic conditions under which his people live have deteriorated since 1998. Bobby’s father Michael was not employed, having been unfit to work because of acute arthritis in his knees, and his mother Bernadette struggled to find the means to raise up a large family. Today many similarly experience material depravation.
Bobby’s point is confirmed by the 2025 Trajectories of Deprivation in the UK study from Queen’s University Belfast, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which revealed that 25% of Northern Ireland's areas are among the UK's most deprived, a higher proportion than any other region. This research found Northern Ireland also has the highest levels of health (28%) and education (27%) deprivation across the UK. At the time of his hunger strike, Tohill’s son who was suffering from cystic fibrosis was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital where he underwent a major operation which resulted in a loss of one of his lungs. This makes Bobby very sensitive to the deteriorating access of the working class to decent medical care. Bobby Tohill also points to the high levels of suicides and criminality and addiction in the areas that experienced the heart of the struggle. West Belfast and North Belfast experience today the worst social indicators in Northern Ireland and Bobby feels the people he fought for have not reaped the peace dividends that had been hoped for. Tohill believes that social and economic conditions for former IRA and INLA volunteers are probably worse than those of IRA veterans from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s he saw around him when growing up.
That said, Tohill points out that some have clearly benefited both politically and materially from the so-called ‘peace process’. According to him the new nationalist Catholic middle class and Sinn Féin politicians are the clear winners of this process. These won their privileges on the back of the sacrifices made by the people like himself and the working class people who were the back bone of the entire struggle– “on another man’s wounds” says Tohill quoting Ernie O’Malley. But he acknowledges the positive contributions made by grassroot members of the Provisional movement. He has a lot of respect for ordinary volunteers but has no time for ‘Truceleers’ and ‘Good Friday Soldiers’. He is on good terms with INLA veterans.
That said, Tohill points out that some have clearly benefited both politically and materially from the so-called ‘peace process’. According to him the new nationalist Catholic middle class and Sinn Féin politicians are the clear winners of this process. These won their privileges on the back of the sacrifices made by the people like himself and the working class people who were the back bone of the entire struggle– “on another man’s wounds” says Tohill quoting Ernie O’Malley. But he acknowledges the positive contributions made by grassroot members of the Provisional movement. He has a lot of respect for ordinary volunteers but has no time for ‘Truceleers’ and ‘Good Friday Soldiers’. He is on good terms with INLA veterans.
Bobby still views himself “as a socialist”. A country with very limited resources such as Cuba has shown its achievements in terms of the healthcare and education it is able to provide for its people and this should be an inspiration for people here. Tohill rests his hopes on people who will challenge current social and economic circumstances like he himself did in the 70s and 80s. He wishes that new generations will be able to learn from both his strengths and weaknesses, that they will find inspiration in what he was right about and learn from his mistakes. Bobby Tohill himself says he has a lot to learn from what women in his community had to endure during the conflict. He has particular admiration for his mother Bernadette and has a lot of respect for his ex-partner Kathy who had to raise his son and defend his case during the Goodman and Kirkpatrick trials.
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| Bobby Tohill @ Fianna parade, early 1970s. Far left of picture. |
Bobby Tohill in 2025 is different from the Bobby Tohill who was nine days short of his 16th birthday in the 1974 trial mentioned at the beginning of this article. Today his anger is directed against the social and economic conditions that the people he fought for are forced to endure. He did not risk his life and liberty for the working class to live in material depravation. His biggest regret is that the struggles he took part in did not bring more benefits to the people around him. Despite his best efforts, the sovereign power is still the government of the United Kingdom. But Tohill is confident that those who rule us will not always be able to rule us in the old way, and those who are ruled will not always accept to be ruled in the old way. New generations will struggle on and mobilise, Bobby Tohill only hopes that they will learn from his own successes and failures.
⏩ Liam Ó Ruairc is the former co-editor of The Blanket.
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