Sinn Féin leaders have been paying tribute to the leading IRA figure Joe Cahill who died last night after a short illness aged 84.
The party's President Gerry Adams described Mr Cahill as both a leader and a servant of the Republican cause.
Martin McGuinness MP and MLA said that Mr Cahill's role in the peace process was critical.
Mr Cahill was an honorary life vice-president of Sinn Féin and was seen as the father figure of the modern Republican movement.
He had been jailed on a number of occasions and was sentenced to death in the 1940s for the murder of a policeman.
His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, but he only served part of it.
