"If I die, God will understand." Bobby Sands spoke those words during a visit in the H-Blocks, Long Kesh, on March 3rd, 1981, the third day of his hunger-strike.
Attempting to find out why Sands had started a second fast seemed a humanitarian imperative. The first hunger-strike was called off in December as one prisoner lay dying and an understanding with the authorities appeared to have been reached.
Before the visit, David Beresford of the Guardian and I were presented with the choice of giving an undertaking not to write about it, or having the meeting cancelled. We hadn't announced ourselves as journalists - there would have been no visit if we had - but obviously we aroused suspicion. We signed a document.
After the visit I asked to speak to a senior prison officer. I told him that, as the matter was of such public interest, I considered the document an empty formula. The Irish Times decided to publish and be damned.
After three years of the "blanket" and no-wash protests, Sands looked emaciated and unlike the smiling face beamed later across the world. He spoke cogently during the half-hour allotted. He had a clear picture of what the republican inmates were fighting for: they resisted the attempt by the British government to phase out special-category status because they regarded themselves as political prisoners.
After the latest breakdown in negotiations in January, the prisoners decided they would endure no further humiliation; they were united and determined to overthrow the criminalisation regime. Asked if he thought he was going to die, he said he did.
Many people opposed to violence - most notably Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich - deplored the criminalisation policy. The thousands of young people caught up in the Troubles were different from ordinary offenders. The phased hunger-strike struck a chord in the Irish psyche: the tradition of "procedure by fasting" went back before the time of Christ.
Sands's election as MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone in April was a turning point in Irish politics. The 30,000 nationalists who voted for him were not all IRA supporters. They voted in record numbers in the hope of saving him and the other hunger-strikers. But Thatcherite obduracy was not for softening. Sands died on the 66th day of his fast.
Tension continued to rise during that annus horribilis. Ten hunger-strikers died in prison, there were numerous killings as the conflict dragged on outside, and a riot occurred at the British embassy in Dublin. Shootings such as that of an off-duty policeman on Holy Thursday undermined the moral force of the hunger-strike. The embassy riot was also counter-productive. On that humid July day a sullen section of the crowd turned quickly into a mob. Those who provoked a confrontation with the Garda did not listen to Bernadette McAliskey, who had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by the UDA: "If Bobby Sands can die for five demands, we can hold our tempers."
This writer received a gash, which required five stitches, while trying naively to disarm a rioter. When the riot squad regained control of the streets of Dublin 4, the discipline of some members slipped and innocent observers were batoned. The violence at the embassy deflected attention from the H-Blocks, where four more prisoners - including Kieran Doherty TD - were allowed to die in August.
To meet someone prepared to die painfully for his friends is a humbling experience. Bobby Sands was no fanatic, but a man of courage, intelligence and sensitivity. His non-violent sacrifice reignited the spirit of Terence MacSwiney: "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer." He was a precursor of subsequent political progress.