Bobby Storey

Robert "Big Bobby" Storey is an Irish republican from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was sentenced to a total of 25 years in jail but was released early under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. Prior to an 18-year conviction for possessing a rifle, he also spent time on remand for a variety of charges and in total served 20 years in prison. He also played a key role in the Maze Prison escape, the biggest prison break in British penal history.

The family was originally from the Marrowbone area, on the Oldpark Road in North Belfast. The family had to move when Bobby was very young due to Ulster loyalist attacks on the district, moving to Manor Street, an interface area also in North Belfast. Bobby's father, also Bobby, was involved in the defence of the area in the 1970s.

Bobby was one of four children. He had two brothers, Seamus and Brian, and a sister Geraldine. Seamus escaped from Crumlin Road Jail in 1971. Seamus and Bobby senior had been arrested after a raid on their home which uncovered a rifle and a pistol. Bobby senior was later released but Seamus was charged. He escaped a couple of months later.

On his mother Peggy's side of the family there was also a history of republicanism, but Bobby, according to An Phoblacht, says "the dominant influences on" him "were the events that were happening around" him. These included the McGurk's Bar bombing in the New Lodge, some of those killed being people who knew his family, and also Bloody Sunday 1972. This then led to his attempts to join the IRA.

Storey left school when he was fifteen and went to work with his father selling fruit. At sixteen, he became a member of the IRA.

On his seventeenth birthday, he was interned and held in Long Kesh for two years. He had been arrested 20 times previous to this but was too young for internment. He was in the "Cages", as the Nissen huts used to house internees were called, in October 1974 when republican prisoners burnt them down. He was released in 1975 but in 1976 was arrested again, charged with blowing up the Skyways Hotel. Held on remand for thirteen months, he was released but was arrested on the day of his trial leaving the court house and charged with a shooting-related incident.

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