The Queen's delight at many visits to Northern Ireland and the Republic

The Queen played a part in Northern Ireland's peace process with her words and her actions.

She visited Belfast more than 20 times but it was perhaps her visit to Dublin in 2011 that was the most politically and historically significant.

She was the first British monarch to visit the city for more than 100 years.

The Queen was also the first to set foot in the Republic of Ireland since it gained independence, following the Anglo-Irish war.

She used the ground-breaking four-day trip to try to heal the wounds of the past.

This was epitomised by her address to a state banquet in Dublin when she began by speaking in Irish.

The then Irish president Mary McAleese looked stunned, and exclaimed: "Wow".

It was seen as a personal way of making the political point that after many years of hostility, Ireland and Britain were now friends.

The Queen also laid a wreath at the Dublin's Garden of Remembrance, which commemorates those who fought against Britain to achieve Irish independence.

The following year, the Queen shook hands with Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader at an event in Belfast.

Again, it was seen as a bridge-building gesture.

In 1979, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was related to the Royal family, was killed by the IRA while holidaying on the Irish coast.

For security reasons, the Queen's visits to Northern Ireland were less frequent during the violent years of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.

She visited in the summer of 1977 on the Royal yacht Britannia as part of her silver jubilee celebrations, but did not return until June 1991.

Her first visit to Northern Ireland was back in 1945, one of three visits before she became Queen.

In July 1953, she made her first visit as monarch. When she stayed overnight at Hillsborough Castle, local Orangemen arrived playing Lambeg drums to mark her coronation.

In total, she made 25 visits to Northern Ireland, the majority of them coming in the 1990s and 2000s after the peace process took hold.

Following the Good Friday Agreement, she visited the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont in 2002.

In an address, she said: "Over the last half century I have always enjoyed my visits to Northern Ireland. Even in the most troubled of times I have been heartened by the warmth and good humour of the people I have met."

Ten years later, she returned to Stormont, and was driven through the estate in an open-topped vehicle. An estimated 20,000 people gathered to see her and the Duke of Edinburgh.

In 2014, she visited Belfast's largest indoor market, St George's, and was shown around by the then chief executive of Belfast City Council, Suzanne Wylie.

Security staff had a momentary scare when a teenager suddenly emerged from the crowd in front of the Queen, but it was merely to take a "selfie" photograph with the monarch.

During her many speeches and statements about Northern Ireland, she always chose her words carefully.

In remarks issued to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland in May 2021, she said: "The continued peace is a credit to its people, upon whose shoulders the future rests."

She was supposed to attend a church service in Armagh in October 2021 to mark the centenary but was unable to attend for medical reasons.