DUBLIN (AP) — The Northern Ireland city of Londonderry is filling with mourners for the funeral of former IRA commander and Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, who helped lead his militant movement to compromise with British Protestants.

Thursday's ceremony is the biggest Irish republican funeral since the 1981 death of Irish Republican Army hunger strike leader Bobby Sands.

Among senior leaders in attendance in Derry — as Irish nationalists call the city — are former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Republic of Ireland's current leaders and former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. Blair and Ahern oversaw U.S.-mediated Belfast negotiations that clinched Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord.

McGuinness died Tuesday at age 66.