'My husband went fishing and didn't come back'

It was a scorching hot spring afternoon in 1984 - but Christine Huggins remembers suddenly going cold all over, as if 'somebody had walked over' her grave. She was out in Limavady, Northern Ireland, with her young son and friend Lynn, and distinctly recalls the 'chill' she felt - although at the time she couldn't place it.

Some 70 miles away in Enniskillen, a car bomb had just exploded, killing two off-duty soldiers instantly. One of them was later named as Corporal Thomas Agar. The other was Christine's husband, Lance Corporal Robert Huggins, from Gorton. A third serviceman, Corporal Peter Gallimore, from Farnworth, would die of injuries suffered in the blast five months later, while the late Corporal Clive Aldridge, also from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, would lose both his legs before passing away in 2013. To this day, nobody has ever been charged with the bombing.

Robert had been on a fishing trip with his service colleagues when their van was blown up by an IRA bomb. In an instant, Christine's life fell apart. Left a single mother with three children, she moved back to Manchester. But, over the years, she has struggled to feel there is an understanding of The Troubles in mainland Britain.

READ MORE: Zoned out and frozen on a busy Manchester morning

The roots of violence which claimed Robert's life go back hundreds of years.

In the early 1600s, parts of Ireland were colonised by the English and given to Scottish and English settlers. Largely Protestant, the settlers clashed with the native Catholics, often resulting in bloody conflict.

In 1800, the Acts of Union abolished the Irish Parliament and incorporated Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. But, by the late 19th century, the Home