Bobby Storey

Robert Storey (11 April 1956 – 21 June 2020)[3][4] was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

[9] He was arrested on suspicion of a bombing at the Skyways Hotel in January 1976 and a kidnapping and murder in the Andersonstown district of Belfast in March 1976, but was acquitted by the judge at his trial.

[9][11] On 14 December 1979, Storey was later arrested in Holland Park, London, with three other IRA volunteers including Gerard Tuite, and charged with conspiring to hijack a helicopter to help Brian Keenan escape from Brixton Prison.

[15] At his trial at Crumlin Road Courthouse in July 1998, he was acquitted after his defence proved the personal information had previously been published in books and newspapers.

[15] Having spent over twenty years in prison, much of it on remand, his final release was in 1998, and he again became involved in developing republican politics and strategy,[7] eventually becoming the northern chairman of Sinn Féin.

[4][17][18] In October 2002, during Stormontgate, a bag belonging to Storey containing secret documents was seized from the home of double agent Denis Donaldson during his arrest.

[4] On 11 January 2005 Ulster Unionist Member of Parliament for South Antrim, David Burnside, told the British House of Commons under parliamentary privilege that Storey was head of intelligence for the IRA.

[23] His funeral procession in Belfast on 30 June was attended by over 1,500 people including McDonald, deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill, and former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, but was criticised for breaking social distancing rules implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic which, at the time operating in Northern Ireland, limited funeral numbers to no more than 30 mourners.

[24] In the 2017 film Maze dramatising the 1983 prison break, directed by Stephen Burke, Storey was portrayed by Irish actor Cillian O'Sullivan.