Tom McFeely (born 1949) is an Irish property developer and former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Originally from Dungiven area in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, McFeely was drawn into the violence that signalled the beginning of the Troubles in 1969 and would soon become a member of the Provisional IRA. Following a period of living life on the run, McFeely was captured and imprisoned after he and an accomplice robbed a post office in the mid-1970s. McFeely was sent to HM Prison Maze where he took on a leadership role amongst other imprisoned IRA men. In 1980 McFeely led seven IRA men on a hunger strike in protest against the revoking of special status for political prisoners, ultimately surviving for 53 days without food until the strike was called off by IRA leadership. In 1986 McFeely was amongst a number of Irish republicans who split from the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin over their recognition of the legitimacy of Dáil Eireann. He subsequently founded the League of Communist Republicans alongside fellow inmate Tommy McKearney.
In 1989 McFeely successfully appealed his case and was released from prison. He thereafter moved to Dublin and entered the construction industry, just as a building boom began as part of Ireland's Celtic Tiger era. Accumulating significant wealth in the 1990s, by the 2000s McFeely was the subject of several criminal investigations. Those investigations found that McFeely had avoided paying millions of euros in taxes and that his property companies had built substandard housing across Ireland. By the early 2010s, McFeely had been declared bankrupt in multiple countries. As of 2023[update], McFeely continues to work in the construction sector in Ireland and Northern Ireland. A 2022 article in the Irish Times described McFeely as "arguably the most disastrous developer to have operated in Ireland over recent decades".[1]