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.
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 Éireann.
He thereafter moved to Dublin and entered the construction industry, just as a building boom began as part of Ireland's Celtic Tiger era.
Those investigations found that McFeely had avoided paying millions of euros in taxes and that his property companies had built substandard housing across Ireland.
It was during this period that McFeely heard speeches by political activists such as Bernadette Devlin and Eamonn McCann and became intrigued by their socialist stances.
[2] By the early 1970s, McFeely was actively involved in the Provisional IRA, which lead to his arrest and sentencing to six months of jail time.
He soon returned to Northern Ireland, moving his wife and children to County Antrim, where he soon set out to bomb the local dole office.
In 1974 McFeely fled once again to the Republic, however this time he was subsequently caught in County Leitrim and imprisoned on a charge of illegally possessing firearms.
McFeely was charged and found guilty of attempted murder, possession of weapons and the robbery of the post office, and sentenced to 26 years in prison in 1977.
McFeely and the rest ended their strike when it appeared to the IRA that they had successfully brokered an official deal with the British government.
[2] In 1986, Sinn Féin voted to recognise the legitimacy of Dáil Éireann and stand candidates for election in the Republic of Ireland.
[6] In 2011, the 300 residents of Priory Hall, a complex of 187 apartments in Dublin built by McFeely's companies, were ordered by the High Court to evacuate after an investigation found the entire development to be an immediate fire risk.
In October 2013, a plumber working at the Dublin home of McFeely discovered €140,000 in cash hidden underneath a bath and reported this to the authorities.
[7] Following the incident, Taoiseach Enda Kenny derided McFeely as exhibiting the negative excesses of the Celtic Tiger era.
O'Broin's 2021 book Defects: Living with the Legacy of the Celtic Tiger was highly critical of McFeely's role in the Priory Hall development.
[11] In a 2009 interview McFeely stated that "[In the 1980s] I argued with other prisoners who were pleased at Sinn Féin taking votes off the SDLP.