Thomas Shelby is a fictional character, the protagonist of the BBC period crime drama Peaky Blinders, played on screen by Irish actor Cillian Murphy. He comes from Small Heath in Birmingham, the second son of a Romani family with Irish roots, and returns from the First World War to lead the Peaky Blinders gang in 1919.

He builds the gang into Shelby Company Limited, a business of bookmaking, gambling and property that reaches London and Glasgow. Known for quiet menace, cold strategy and a damaged war veteran's n