  The Swift/BAT 9-month catalogue of active galactic nuclei (AGN) provides an
unbiased census of local supermassive black hole accretion, and probes to all
but the highest levels of absorption in AGN. We explore a method for
characterising the bolometric output of both obscured and unobscured AGN by
combining the hard X-ray data from Swift/BAT (14-195keV) with the reprocessed
IR emission as seen with the IRAS all-sky surveys. This approach bypasses the
complex modifications to the SED introduced by absorption in the optical, UV
and 0.1-10 keV regimes and provides a long-term, average picture of the
bolometric output of these sources. We broadly follow the approach of Pozzi et
al. for calculating the bolometric luminosities by adding nuclear IR and hard
X-ray luminosities, and consider different approaches for removing non-nuclear
contamination in the large-aperture IRAS fluxes. Using mass estimates from the
M_BH-L_bulge relation, we present the Eddington ratios \lambda_Edd and 2-10 keV
bolometric corrections for a subsample of 63 AGN (35 obscured and 28
unobscured) from the Swift/BAT catalogue, and confirm previous indications of a
low Eddington ratio distribution for both samples. Importantly, we find a
tendency for low bolometric corrections (typically 10-30) for the obscured AGN
in the sample (with a possible rise from ~15 for \lambda_Edd<0.03 to ~32 above
this), providing a hitherto unseen window onto accretion processes in this
class of AGN. This finding is of key importance in calculating the expected
local black hole mass density from the X-ray background since it is composed of
emission from a significant population of such obscured AGN. Analogous studies
with high resolution IR data and a range of alternative models for the torus
emission will form useful future extensions to this work. (Abridged)
