The Queen and her connection with Northern Ireland

Throughout the years of her reign, the Queen’s relationship with Ireland touched on some of the darkest days of this island’s history – but also some of its most hopeful.

The Queen appeared to understand the importance of symbols and gestures, using them to great effect in the cause of reconciliation.

This was epitomised by her historic handshake with Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander and Sinn Féin leader, in Belfast in 2012, and also in her state visit to Dublin in 2011 – the first by a British monarch since Ireland gained its independence from Britain.

She was a regular visitor to Northern Ireland, first visiting in 1945 as a teenage princess.

She often expressed sadness after atrocities committed during the Troubles, but the murder that hurt her most personally was the IRA’s assassination of Earl Mountbatten in 1979. The earl was her husband’s uncle.

BBC News NI's Gareth Gordon looks back at her connection with Northern Ireland.