In 1972, at the bloody height of the Troubles, home invaders abducted a widowed mother of 10 named Jean McConville from her Belfast apartment. Her children never saw her alive again. The family spent decades demanding answers from the Irish Republican Army, which was known to have “disappeared” fellow Catholics at the time, as to what had become of McConville and why—a quest that propels Patrick Radden Keefe’s acclaimed 2018 book, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. Now the best seller has been adapted into an exceptional nine-episode FX miniseries, also titled Say Nothing, that resonates not only as a gripping true-crime drama, but also as an urgently timely work of political art.
While the mystery of McConville’s disappearance gives the narrative shape, Keefe (an executive producer) and creator Joshua Zetumer weave several related stories into a profound meditation on radicalism, regret, and the complicated legacy of the Troubles. From a distance, we observe the rise of Gerry Adams, who would become the longtime leader of Irish republican party Sinn Fein. Though an onscreen disclaimer dutifully notes that he has always denied having been an IRA member or participated in its attacks, the show’s version of a cutthroat young Gerry (Josh Finan) masterminds bombings and orders the deaths of compromised comrades.
But the core of Say Nothing, which will stream in full on Hulu beginning on Nov. 14, is the story of Dolours Price, portrayed as a young woman by Belfast native Lola Petticrew and in middle age by Maxine Peake, in a pair of indelible performances. Raised by Catholics who had been jailed and maimed for the republican cause, brilliant firebrand Dolours and her quieter but, as it turns out, more militant sister Marian (Hazel Doupe), briefly explore nonviolence in the ’60s; the strategy yields only beatings at the hands of Protestant cops. The Price girls soon volunteer for the Belfast branch of the IRA, refusing the helpmate duties of their mother’s generation in favor of frontline action. In one madcap sequence, early in the series, they hold up a bank disguised as nuns.
A less glamorous aspect of Dolours’ IRA career involves driving traitors and other locals judged to be liabilities across the border to Ireland proper, where she knows that her confederates will execute them. Too perceptive, perhaps, for her own good, she remains conflicted about this particular form of violence. “I just didn’t think my contribution to this war would be killing Catholics,” she says. Barely out of her teens, Dolours harbors a burning desire to attack London and instill in Northern Ireland’s English overlords the same fear she and her family have always felt.
A disputed border. A generations-spanning conflict layered in land, identity, and faith. The downtrodden population of one side resists the military occupation of the wealthier overlord, but endures the bulk of the carnage. Questions of war vs. insurgency, freedom fighter vs. terrorist, the ethics of either side’s making civilians collateral damage for the sake of what they see as justice. The Troubles seem more than a little relevant to the tragedy now playing out in Gaza; earlier this year, Ireland recognized a Palestinian state, and Irish artists like Nicola Coughlan and Sally Rooney have criticized the Israeli government. Without sacrificing the specificity of Dolours’ story, Say Nothing captures the moral, ideological, and emotional complexity of such struggles, past and present.
At a moment when extreme positions prevail, some might bristle at the grace the show gives to its protagonist. An episode that has the frenetic intensity of an espionage thriller positions her as the canny yet nervous ringleader of a band of teens planting car bombs. But then it progresses through the next four decades’ worth of history, structured by the older Dolours’ candid interview for a confidential Belfast oral-history project. And as her story becomes increasingly intertwined with the McConvilles’ search for the truth about Jean and with Gerry’s use of power to escape accountability, the series leaves the impression that life is long. No matter the merits of their cause, a young revolutionary with a conscience will grow up to be a person haunted by the very worst things they did in service of it.
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