Dominic McGlinchey was born in 1954 into a County Derry family with a strong Republican background.

Beginning in August 1971, he was interned for ten months in the prison camps of Ballykelly and Long Kesh. After his release, he was imprisoned again in 1973 on arms charges.

After his next release, he joined an independent Republican unit in South Derry along with Ian Milne and future Provisional IRA hunger striker Francis Hughes (some members of the independent unit would later join the PIRA). Their activities led the Royal Ulster Constabulary to take the unusual step of issuing wanted posters.

In the midst of his paramilitary career, he married Mary O'Neill on 5 July 1975. The couple would have three children: Declan, Dominic, and Marie (who died as an infant). Mary herself would later become a volunteer in the Irish National Liberation Army.

McGlinchey was arrested by the Irish police in 1977 and charged with hijacking a police vehicle, threatening a police officer with a gun, and resisting arrest. While serving time in Portlaoise Prison, he clashed with the PIRA leadership and ceased his affiliation with that organisation.

He joined the INLA in 1982 as Operations Officer for South Derry and within six months became Chief of Staff. He made an immediate impact, putting an end to dissension within the organisation and building the organisation up throughout the country.

Actions carried out during this period included the bombing of the Mount Gabriel radar station in Co. Cork, which was providing help to NATO in violation of Irish neutrality; the bombing of the Droppin' Well Pub, which catered to British military personnel; and numerous other attacks on British military personnel, RUC personnel, and loyalist paramilitary figures.

McGlinchey was arrested on St. Patrick's Day, 1984, in Co. Clare, and was extradited to Northern Ireland the same night. He was found guilty of murder and given a life sentence. In October 1985, the Belfast Appeals Court overturned the conviction on the grounds of insufficient evidence and McGlinchey was returned to the South where he was sentenced to ten years in Portlaoise on firearms charges.

While he was in prison, his wife, Mary, was murdered on 31 January 1987.

After his release from prison in March of 1993, he began investigating claims that the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force was involved in money laundering with Irish criminals. In June of that year, he survived an assassination attempt made by UVF member Billy Wright.

On 10 February 1994, McGlinchey was making a call from a phone box in Drogheda when two men got out of a vehicle and proceeded to shoot him fourteen times.

"He was the finest Republican of them all. He never dishonoured the cause he believed in. His war was with the armed soldiers and police of this State." — Bernadette Devlin McAliskey