Tributes have been paid to the veteran Republican Joe Cahill who died in hospital late last night, Sinn Fein announced today.
The father figure of the modern Republican movement, Cahill had been jailed on a number of occasions and was sentenced to death in the 1940s for the murder of a policeman. The his sentence commuted to life imprisonment after the intervention of the then Pope.
Cahill (84) was an honorary life vice-president of Sinn Fein. He died in Belfast where he had been a leading light in the IRA for many decades, named by the army in the early 1970s as the IRA's chief of staff.
He was released from jail in the early 1950s after serving only part of his life sentence, but was put back behind bars in 1973 for gun running.
Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams, paying tribute to Cahill said: "Joe Cahill spent a lifetime in struggle. He was both a leader and a servant of the
Republican cause."
He said in the 1930s and 40s he was one of those who stood against the partition of Ireland and for Irish unity, and was imprisoned on many occasions for his beliefs.