A founding father of IRA branch dies

DUBLIN, Ireland — Joe Cahill, a founding father of the modern Irish Republican Army who once narrowly avoided the hangman's noose, died Friday in his Belfast home, the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party announced yesterday. He was 84.

Mr. Cahill was the first Belfast commander of the modern "Provisional" wing of the IRA, founded in December 1969, the year that Northern Ireland descended into decades of civil unrest. After killing about 1,800 people and maiming thousands, IRA commanders called open-ended cease-fires in 1994 and 1997 — when Mr. Cahill's vote in favor was considered critical.

"He was an unapologetic, physical-force republican who fought when he felt that was the only option," Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said yesterday. "But he also significantly stood for peace and was a champion of the Sinn Fein peace strategy."

Mr. Cahill was sentenced to death alongside five other IRA members for killing a policeman in 1942. While one of his colleagues, Tom Williams, was hanged, Mr. Cahill and the others had their sentences commuted to life. He was freed in 1949.