“It doesn’t matter who pulls the trigger. The deed starts way back, but the responsibility rests with all of ye. Ye cannot get away from that, but in a way there’s no one person actually can say: ‘I was the man.’ Ye can see the actual event in your mind’s eye, yes. But it’s not the killin’ that upsets ye. It’s where it leaves your family if ye get caught. And ye could be away, say, seven or eight years. And the lack of a father at home starts ye guilt-tripping.

“When they write about politics they get thon aspect wrong. In the papers they’re always wrong about the domestic life. That’s where it begins, and that’s where it ends. Let no one tell ye different. The personal life. When ye’re inside, your whole personal life assumes enormous proportions. Outside ye were committed. Your personal life didn’t exist.

“Inside, all that activity has come to an end.

“So you start guilt-tripping. And the Brits know that. The easier they make it for you, the worse it becomes. You dream of your girlfriend or your woman and children all day long. And you have to offset that. That’s why the military life in some way must continue. That’s one thing. But something more important emerges. The spiritual life. In the blanket protest you had four to five hundred men cocooned in the one place. They had nothing but themselves, so they had to rely on spiritual strength. Out here there are so many distractions. See here, where I’m sitting, I can look out the window. I can go out and be a part of that – of what’s outside. But inside you get to know the value – not of what’s out there – but who’s in there beside you.

“So demotivation can be compensated for by comradeship. I had trouble with that. I wanted to lie there and guilt-trip. But comradeship increases your beliefs. So the men alongside you become your family. This stops the guilt. And those men represent for you in a spiritual way what ideals you started with. When you started out you knew you might be killed but the date was uncertain. You hoped that your beliefs were in good hands. When you are inside you know – you realize for the first time – what you are fighting for, and you can start to understand in a different way, than before, how you might die.

“Bobby Sands knew he was going to die. The first day he refused food he was setting the date. He came round to thinking he would be the sacrifice. When it came to the turn of the rest they argued. It should have ended with him. Now they knew it was going to be a protracted process, a protracted struggle. I don’t think any one of them knew they were going to die.