Newton's Optic: As Ireland marks the the 25th anniversary of the IRA hunger strike, few will spare a thought for those who survived - except every features editor in the country. Newton Emerson meets one such forgotten survivor.
Time has not been kind to Frank Fast. Welcoming me into his modest three-bedroom home in the republican stronghold of his modest three-bedroom home, it is hard not to notice that he looks much older than any of the Protestants he killed.
"The Housing Executive just put a new kitchen in," he says, quietly. "They're still taunting me after all these years."
Frank had been refusing food for almost one day when the hunger strike was called off in 1981.
"It was a Wednesday though, which was steak and chips night. I still have health problems even now - coughing, chest pains, shortness of breath," he complains, while lighting one cigarette off another. "Still, I realise I'm one of the lucky ones. I'll never forget the men who died - Bobby Sands, Buzz Aldrin... the others. They suffered terribly, unlike the Protestants they killed who all died quickly - except the burn cases I suppose, although even that only takes about a week."
Frank's early life was a tragic and convenient allegory of Northern Ireland's descent into madness. "I grew up in a mixed area with friends from both sides," he says. "But when the Troubles began I realised the state was fundamentally sectarian, which obviously left me with no choice but to start killing Protestants."
However, it was the hunger strike that defined his political awareness.
"It isn't true that Sinn Féin manipulated us into taking action," insists Frank. "We had a contact in the PLO who suggested using suicide bombers. Nobody realised he meant doing both at the same time."
Bobby Sands was the first to volunteer because of his military record.
"Bobby was inside for fire-bombing a furniture showroom in Dunmurry," explains Frank. "We thought that would send a clear message to the cabinet. His death also helped us take to a seat and that eventually got everyone around the table. Imagine how the peace process might have turned out if he'd been done for raiding an off-licence."
Frank also denies that the British government offered an early compromise.
"They did send a clown in with some sort of meal deal - a quarter-pounder with extra fries and a large Coke, I think it was, but that wasn't acceptable. We're the IRA, we told him. We'll supply our own coke."
As the strike wore on it began to extract a dreadful psychological toll. "In his final delirium, one of the guys even converted to Protestantism," reveals Frank sombrely. "He knew then that killing himself wouldn't be a sin. It would just be a regrettable necessity within the context of conflict."
The trauma still affects Frank to this day. "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night screaming. I keep dreaming about Protestants eating burnt quarter-pounders in furniture showrooms."
Only one thing keeps him going - his hatred for Margaret Thatcher.
"She didn't understand, she didn't care, she was happy to watch us die - like we were no better than Protestants."
However, the British government refutes this accusation.
"Mrs Thatcher did empathise with the prisoners," said a No 10 spokesman. "When we told her about the dirty protest, she hardly touched her breakfast."