Omagh was where the hospital was, Tyrone’s county town, where Bridie went to get her pains and blood checked out. It was where the mart was, where we bought and sold cattle. It was where Woolworths sold Pick’n’Mix. It felt so wrong to even have it mentioned on the news. My milk dried up practically overnight and I was pregnant again by the time Margaret Thatcher was forced out of Downing Street. She had a little cry in the car as they drove her away in November.

Daniel was born in a matter of hours at home, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was made to have children. I was back on my feet and back in front of the range frying eggs when he was barely dry. The bombs, firebombs, mortars, bullets and bullshit were still flying thick and fast as Daniel cut his first tooth. He was up toddling about and falling happily on the concrete when the IRA bombed the Baltic Exchange in London. The news reported the endless talks that were taking place behind closed doors between all the parties and the British government. Someone’s not listening, says John Johns. He was right.

When Eugene and Marius were getting excited about going to school and practising their letters with Serena at the table, the IRA killed two children in Warrington; the UDA killed five Catholic civilians on a building site in Castlerock, Derry; and Bishopsgate in London was hit by the IRA killing just one person, religion unknown.

Lizzie Magee married someone called Kenny McGuckin, a Derry man who was waiting out the Troubles in London just like she was. I’d tucked my invitation into the frame on my bedroom mirror as soon as I’d written to say I couldn’t make it. Too busy with children and cows; she understood. I hoped I’d see pictures of her in the biggest white meringue she could find! We had promised we would be each other’s bridesmaid when it came to living happily ever after, another dream dashed. We’d had a collection of frocks snipped out of magazines that peppered the mirror in Lizzie’s bedroom. We changed our minds so often on which one was the most beautiful, which one we’d wear to make sure our big day was perfect. We were old enough now to know that there was no such thing as perfect.

Dessie and Sheila wouldn’t cross the water. That’s all she wrote and I knew that her heart was broken that they didn’t make the effort. I couldn’t believe that the mad pair I’d known wouldn’t crawl there if they had to? They thought the sun rose and set on Lizzie. What had kept them at home?