Dolours Price, 61, the woman at the center of the Boston College IRA tapes controversy, has died suddenly.
She was found dead by her son in her County Dublin home.
A senior source told the Irish Independent: “She was found unconscious on her bed last night by her son. She has taken overdoses before so that is what is being looked at.”
She was formerly married to actor Stephen Rea, had two children, and was in poor mental health for some time.
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Price was a leading figure in the IRA dissident support groups and an arch-critic of the peace process and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
Her claims that Adams had taken a lead part in the murder of suspected IRA informer Jean McConville in Belfast in 1972 were at the center of the controversial British request to secure the Boston College IRA tapes.
The tapes were conversations with former IRA and Loyalist leaders for an historical archive but the British government have so far successfully sought their contents.
She took part in the bombing of the Old Bailey in 1973 in London when 200 people were injured.
Price and her sister Marian served long prison sentences for that bombing after they were arrested on a plane leaving for Ireland that same day.
She suffered from post traumatic stress after being force fed in prison and attempted self-harm on a number of occasions.
Price re-emerged as an arch Adams critic after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 brought the IRA campaign to an end.
Adams denied all her claims but refused to be drawn into debate with her, citing her illness