Tiede Herrema. The name still has a resonance to it, which jolts memories and brings other names to the surface in its wake. Ferenka, Monasterevin, Eddie Gallagher, Marian Coyle. On October 3rd, 1975, Herrema, the Dutch managing director of Limerick's Ferenka factory, was kidnapped 200 yards from his Castletroy home in Co Limerick while on his way to work.

The demand from an anonymous caller came quickly: Herrema would be freed only on the release of political prisoners, Rose Dugdale, Kevin Mallon, and James Hyland, who were being held in Portlaoise at the time. The Minister for Justice, Cooney, was having none of it. To concede to the kidnappers, he said, would be to "place the State in jeopardy".

The kidnapping electrified the country, and the story attracted international attention. It was 18 days before Herrema was traced to an end-of-terrace house on a Monasterevin estate, where he was being held in an upstairs bedroom by Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle. The twin armies - the security forces and the media - moved in to watch and wait outside. It was 17 days before the siege ended peacefully and unexpectedly, on the night of November 7th, when Gallagher and Coyle gave themselves up. Afterwards, Herrema moved back to the Netherlands because his company felt it would be too much of a risk to let him remain in that particular job, although he personally wanted to stay on. The Ferenka factory closed down after his departure, with a loss of 1,400 jobs.

Herrema is now 78. He retired only in the past few years, still leads a busy international life, and returns to Ireland every so often. His four sons are all married, and there are now eight grandchildren. He protests that the 1975 kidnapping was "just one incident" in his eventful life: "I have changed jobs at least 15 times, and nobody ever asks me about that," he observes.

However, the inescapable fact is that the Irish public will always associate his name with the kidnapping. Home is in Arnhem, although he and his wife Elizabeth also have a second home in Newcastle-on-Tyne in England, where one of their sons now lives.

Does he mind talking about the kidnapping? "At the time of the kidnapping, most people had the idea that it was physically and mentally very difficult for me, but because they didn't hurt me, I don't have a problem talking about it," he explains.

So what was he thinking that day, as he was bundled into the kidnappers' car? "Who are they? What do they want? Where are we going? How many of them are there? That is how my mind operates. I'm always trying to make a plan, to organise things, and to have an idea what is the next step - because I have had to do that all my life with my work."

Since Herrema has a PhD in philosophy, his mind was exceptionally well prepared for the psychological strain of captivity and isolation. "I knew something about the kind of mistakes you can make when you are isolated and on your own. The main thing you have to do is not get disoriented and that's why I had my own programme. In the morning I was washing; that was, in my mind, I was washing. I always knew what day it was, and for how many days I had been captured."

A sense of order prevailed when it came to the distribution of the food, which was hauled upstairs in a basket every day from the gardai in situ downstairs. "I had a schedule to make a day a day and a night a night," he recounts. That meant he rationed out his share of the food - sandwiches, milk and Lucozade - to mirror mealtimes. "But I always had to start eating first, because they were afraid there might be something in the sandwiches to make them sleep." A sense of fairness prevailed among the captors: although there was very little food, they did not eat into Herrema's share.

However, when asked "Were you ever afraid?" Herrema replies instantly, "yes". All the logic of chess and method of ordering the days didn't take away that fundamental fear of mortality. There were "five or six" bad moments, where he thought this might be the end for him, all of them involving guns and frayed nerves on the part of his captors.

As an existentialist, he does not believe in an afterlife. Did this make the captivity harder? "It made it easier," he says calmly. "Everything in your life, you have chosen yourself. It was my fault to come to Ireland. It was my fault to go to work in that factory. I have chosen to do those things." He is very clear on the fact that he doesn't think it was fate which placed him in captivity for several weeks. "It was my own decision. If you accept that way of thinking, you then have to draw on your own strengths."

After the siege, Eddie Gallagher was sentenced to 20 years in prison, of which he served almost 14; Marion Coyle was sentenced to 15 years and served 10. Herrema is on record several times as stating that, in his view, both sentences were too long. When he was released, he spent a holiday in the Bahamas. "At that time, I wrote the whole story of the captivity for myself, and I still have that, in handwriting." None of his children or grandchildren has seen this manuscript; the only person who has is his wife. He has never had any intention of publishing it: "I don't wish to make any money out of this occasion."

He has been back three or four times to look at the house in Monasterevin, usually from the outside. The last time was last September, when they returned with their eldest grandchild, now 20, who was curious to see the place where her grandfather had been held captive.

And what of the future? He is remarkably precise: "I want to stay alive for another four or five years." Only that long? "I have to be a realist," he points out. "I am 78 now. Most people die at the age I am now. If I have another four or five years, this is fine." And then the interview is over, he disappears into the Dublin hotel, and the space he has vacated takes a long time to unsettle itself.