[2][3] He was released in 1977 but was sentenced to 14 years in August 1980 after being caught by the British Army with a loaded sten gun along with another IRA member Gerard O'Callaghan.
[4] That same year an older brother, Tommy McKearney, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of an off-duty Ulster Defence Regiment soldier who worked as a postman in 1977,[5] nearly died on hunger strike after refusing food for 53 days.
He advocated the commencement of the "third phase" of the armed struggle, the 'strategic defensive', in which the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Ulster Defence Regiment and British Army would be denied all support in selected areas following repeated attacks on their bases.1 In 1985 Patrick Kelly became commander of the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade and it was under his leadership that this strategy was pursued.
^1 The "Third Phase" in Provisional IRA thinking represented an escalation of the conflict in Northern Ireland with the eventual aim of using more conventional warfare by taking and holding "liberated zones" along the border.
Due to a number of factors, including the loss of experienced activists at Loughgall and the interception of 120 tonnes of Libyan weaponry aboard the Eksund ship, this strategy was never carried out.