Tommy Kirkham

Tommy Kirkham is a Northern Ireland loyalist political figure and former councillor. Beginning his political career with the Democratic Unionist Party, he was then associated with the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Political Research Group although he has since been expelled from both groups. He was a former deputy mayor of Newtownabbey and sat on Newtownabbey Borough Council as an Independent Loyalist.

Kirkham entered politics in 1989 when he was elected to Newtownabbey Borough Council as a DUP councillor representing the Antrim Line district electoral area. However he lost his seat at the 1993 local elections when, following boundary changes, he was one of three candidates not elected to the council from Antrim Line.

From his base in Rathcoole, Kirkham then became a member of the Ulster Democratic Party and stood as the party's candidate in a February 1995 by-election in Rathcoole but was unsuccessful. In 1996 he was an unsuccessful candidate in the Northern Ireland Forum election in East Antrim. He returned to the council at the 1997 local elections in the Macedon electoral area. In 2001, when the UDP was dissolved and the UDA Inner Council decided to bring back the UPRG, they chose Kirkham as one of the new faces to front the group. He became a leading spokesman for the UPRG whilst also serving as an independent on Newtownabbey Borough Council (with the UPRG not registered as a political party). He is registered as the leader of the Ulster Protestant League, although it is unclear whether or not this organisation exists beyond Kirkham, who is labelled as an Independent Unionist in Newtownabbey.

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