Olivia O’Hagan tried to keep out of politics. But Northern Ireland’s Troubles had a way of coming to her door. First her sister was abducted and shot. Then her father was shot at for buying property from a Protestant. People all around her were paranoid about being hassled by paramilitaries or dying in random attacks, and O’Hagan had become used to a life of fear.

"You didn’t know who to trust," she recalled in a 2013 oral history. "You just kept yourself to yourself. You didn’t get angry whenever you heard of all the people being shot dead. You just thought ‘When is this ever going to end?’"

She had good reason to wonder. The Troubles—a term long used as