North Ireland's former Deputy First Minister and one time IRA commander Martin McGuinness died aged 66, according to Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein on 21st March, 2017.
Mr. McGuinness had resigned from politics in January, citing a serious illness and a breakdown in relations with the rival Democratic Unionist Party.
Sinn Fein refused to appoint a replacement for Mr. McGuinness in January due to a row with the DUP, its partner in a power-sharing government set up to bring peace to the Province.
That triggered local elections in which Sinn Fein made major gains against the DUP and the two parties are currently deadlocked.
This means the British government could impose direct rule of Northern Ireland from London.
McGuinness had made history by entering a government with his once bitter foe, Ian Paisley of the DUP.
The decision to share power was a key part of the peace process in Northern Ireland, which endured three decades of violence in which more than 3,500 people died.
McGuinness was a commander in the IRA paramilitary group that fought for the Province to leave Britain and join the Republic of Ireland to the south.
McGuinness never hid the fact that he had been a commander of the IRA - classed as a terrorist organization by the British, Irish and US governments.
Born May 23, 1950, he joined the breakaway Provisional IRA faction in his native Londonderry - simply "Derry" to Irish nationalists - after dropping out of high school and working as an apprentice butcher in the late 1960s.
At the time, the Catholic civil rights movement faced increasing conflict with the province's Protestant government and police.
Sinn Fein: Know More- Leader: Gerry Adams TD
- Chairman: Declan Kearney MLA
- Deputy Leader: Mary Lou McDonald TD
- Leader in Northern Ireland: Michelle O'Neill MLA
- General Secretary: Dawn Doyle
- Founder: Arthur Griffith
- Founded: 28 November 1905(original form); 17 January 1970 (current form)
- Newspaper: An Phoblacht
- Youth wing: Sinn Féin Republican Youth
