Martin McGuinness, the Irish Republican Army commander who led his underground paramilitary movement toward reconciliation with Britain, died on Tuesday, his Sinn Fein party announced.
Turning from rebel to peacemaker, McGuinness served as Northern Ireland's deputy first Minister for a decade in a power-sharing Government.
The party said he died following a short illness.
McGuinness suffered from amyloidosis, a rare disease with a strain specific to Ireland's northwest. The chemotherapy required to combat the formation of organ-choking protein deposits quickly sapped him of strength and forced him to start missing Government appointments.