IRA figure Brendan Hughes

DUBLIN, Ireland - Brendan "The Dark" Hughes, a one-time Irish Republican Army commander who broke with former comrades when they pursued peace in Northern Ireland, was cremated yesterday after a funeral that briefly unified both sides of the split.

Hughes, 59, who died Saturday, spent his final years criticizing Sinn Fein leaders for accepting Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord. He said that, while the IRA should not return to violence, its political leaders made people suffer needlessly for decades when the British government had offered similar peace terms as long ago as 1975.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, a longtime comrade of Hughes inside and outside prison, helped carry his coffin outside St. Peter's Cathedral in Catholic west Belfast, where both men joined the IRA as teenagers.

Adams issued a statement after Hughes' death calling him "a very good friend and comrade over many years of struggle."

Veterans of the IRA and dissident groups were among more than 2,000 mourners.

Hughes specified before dying that he wanted to be cremated rather than buried in the IRA's roll of honor section in Milltown Cemetery, west Belfast, where dozens of his comrades lie.

He said in 2000 that Sinn Fein leaders had turned their backs on the working class, preferring to take good-paying government jobs in a Northern Ireland that remained British territory.

The cause of death was not disclosed. But his family said he had suffered illnesses associated with his failure to recover fully from the effects of a 1980 prison hunger strike. *