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Republican and Sinn Féin strategist Rita O'Hare has died aged 80 after a long illness.

The party leader, Mary Lou McDonald, paid tribute to the former Sinn Féin representative in the US describing her as a "genuine patriot".

She was a "powerhouse" within the party and she played an influential role in the peace process, Ms McDonald added.

She was wanted in NI for her alleged involvement in the 1971 attempted murder of an Army warrant officer.

She fled to the Republic of Ireland, where she later served a three-year jail sentence for trying to smuggle explosives into Limerick prison while on a visit.

An attempt to extradite her to Northern Ireland failed after the High Court in Dublin in 1978 ruled that her alleged offences were political.

Ms O'Hare held several leadership positions in Sinn Féin including general secretary, director of publicity, the party's US representative as well as editor of the An Phoblacht, the Sinn Féin newspaper.

She was widely admired in the republican movement and by both British and Irish politicians for her role in the peace process, but many unionists regarded her as a hate figure because of her IRA involvement.

Ms O'Hare was also widely respected in Irish-American circles with many leading figures visiting her in recent weeks.

She was born Rita McCullough to a Protestant socialist father, Billy, and a Catholic mother, Maureen.

She married the late former republican and journalist Gerry O'Hare, but the couple later divorced.

She married her long-time partner Brendan Brownly, also a Belfast republican living in Dublin.

She was a mother to four children, a grandmother and great grandmother. She died at her home in Dublin on Friday night.