A hardline republican turns to the ballot box

For a man who was sentenced to death in 1942, Joe Cahill is surviving well. At the age of 78, the former IRA chief of staff in the 1970s is standing in his first election, as a Sinn Fein candidate in North Antrim.

The man, who embodies hardline republicanism was canvassing last night in a rain-sodden Dunloy, Co Antrim, dodging puddles and dragging people away from Coronation Street. He comes across as soft-spoken and even shy, avoiding direct gazes and nervously jangling the change in his pocket. The armed struggle seems light years away.

For half a century, Cahill's life has been inextricable from that of the IRA. He was involved in the shooting of a policeman in Belfast in the 1940s and sentenced to death. He was reprieved but his cellmate, Tom McWilliams, was hanged. "It still seems like yesterday being in the condemned cell. I was sure I would be hanged and I talked with Tom about life after death."

Joe Cahill spent eight years in prison for that offence. Then he was interned for four years during the IRA campaign of the 1950s. He spent more time in prison in the 1970s after being convicted of running guns from Libya.

He has been expelled twice from the US but the decision to give him a visa to travel there in 1994 helped secure the first IRA ceasefire.

He says now he always knew republicans would have to go down "the road to constitutional politics". "This is another phase of the struggle; the objective is still the same. This is the way forward; it's the best opportunity we've had for a long time."

But what would Tom McWilliams and the generations of IRA martyrs think of him standing in an election in an as yet unfree Ireland? "Anyone I know who has made the supreme sacrifice would think this way," he replies quietly.

As for the Continuity IRA and other groups who continue the armed struggle, he say only that is "sad" that they will not "toe the line". "They're not doing any favours for themselves, or for us."

The keys are left in the doors in this small, quiet village. Religious statues decorate the windows. Joe Cahill gets a polite response but he is not well-known in these parts. He grew up on the Falls Road and lives in Dundalk. He says he spent youthful summers in the Glens of Antrim but that was a long time ago.

"Personally, I don't want a seat. I want to put the local man in," he says, pointing to his party colleague, James McCarry, who is from nearby Ballycastle.

In any case, he says, the Assembly is only a "transitional step" towards a united Ireland. But how long a step? "Who can be a prophet?" asks Joe Cahill, his eyes invisible behind rain-spattered glasses.

Victory would mean sharing a platform with that other septuagenarian of Northern politics, Ian Paisley. Would He have any problem with this? "Not at all. But I'd be just as happy to share a defeat with him."