described McFarlane as "six feet tall and full of bonhomie", a "great singer" possessing a "striking character". O'Rawe also said that McFarlane was an avid supporter of Gaelic football. He was Provisional IRA Officer Commanding in the Maze during the 1981 Irish hunger strike in which 10 republicans died. He took over from Bobby Sands in March 1981. Asked why, Sands is said to have replied: "Because you will let me die." He later described 1981 as, "probably the worst year of my life. Despite the political gains, the loss of that year is always with me." McFarlane went on to lead the Maze Prison escape, the mass break-out of 38 republican prisoners from the Maze in 1983 in which a prison officer died of a heart attack. Fifteen IRA men were caught in the vicinity of the prison, four were captured later that day, 19 got away, with three never being recaptured. Immediately following the escape, McFarlane and other prisoners commandeered a remote farmhouse near Dromore, County Down, and held the family inside hostage. Although he took a map and compass, and other items from the premises, none of the family members, which included two small children and a baby, were harmed. He and the other former escapees made their way across the Irish border and went on the run. After the break-out, McFarlane resumed his IRA activities. In December 1983, he is alleged to have kidnapped supermarket executive Don Tidey in a bid to ransom him to raise money for the IRA. The kidnap was one of spate of kidnappings and robberies ordered by the IRA Army Council in the early 1980s to raise funds. Tidey was taking his 13-year-old daughter to school when he stopped at what he believed to be a Garda Síochána checkpoint. A gun was put to his head and he was bundled into a waiting car. A few days later his photograph was sent to Associated British Foods, and this was followed by a phone call demanding an IR£5 million ransom. The Gardaí eventually tracked Tidey and his kidnappers – four in all – to Derrada Wood in Ballinamore, County Leitrim on 16 December 1983. In the subsequent shoot-out, following which Tidey made his escape, a trainee Garda and an Irish Army soldier (Gary Sheehan and Patrick Kelly) were killed. Tidey's kidnappers escaped. On 16 January 1986, McFarlane was recaptured in the Netherlands