Former IRA leader Mr Seán MacStiofáin has died aged 73 after a stroke. He died in hospital in Navan, Co Meath.
Born John Edward Stevens in London in 1928 he became chief of staff of the Provisional IRA in the 1970s.
He was part of a Republican delegation which went to London to meet the then Northern Ireland Secretary Mr William Whitelaw in 1972 for peace talks. Sinn Féin's Mr Martin McGuinness also attended these talks.
Mr MacStiofáin left Sinn Féin in the early 1980s.