America Remembers Thomas McElwee.

Thomas McElwee was a twenty-three-year-old IRA Volunteer, from Bellaghy in South Derry. He had been imprisoned since the age of nineteen, following a premature explosion in which he lost an eye.

He was a first cousin of Francis Hughes, who died after fifty-nine days on hunger strike, on May 12th.

Thomas McElwee and his cousin, Francis Hughes: two dedicated Irish republicans from were close friends in their boyhood years and who later fought side by side in the towns and fields of South Derry for the freedom of their country.

A fairly typical young Derryman, kind and good-natured, full of life, and with a craze for cars and stock-car racing who filled with a love of his country and its way of life. He witnessed the brutality of the British Army and Police in a land torn by sectarianism and discrimination.

He decided to act and dedicated his young life to achieve the liberation of his country.

He was convicted in a political non-jury court. He was a political prisoner. He died an Irish Patriot.

Read more on the life of Tom McElwee here.