Whatever You Say, Say Nothing

The presence of Saint Patrick's Day in March had me reading a few books on Irish and Irish-American history. Here's one of the more memorable.

. . .

 "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Radden Keefe.

Patrick Keefe opens his equally enthralling and disturbing book with the story of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten who was abducted from her home in Northern Ireland in 1972 in front of her children and never seen again. The family lived in a sprawling public housing complex always swarming with families and children, but eerily deserted when the IRA (Irish Republican Army) took McConville. No one came out to help her or her children — until the state stepped in and scattered the McConvilles in institutions across the county. They grew up motherless, abused, estranged and never managed to resume the close family relationship they once had. This is only one of the threads that weaves in and out of Keefe's book as he dissects "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland. 

In 1969 Great Britain had 2,500 troops in Northern Ireland, ostensibly to keep the peace during sectarian violence between the Catholics and Protestants. In only three years, that number swelled to 30,000. These were not the soldiers of WWII, but ones that had been fighting the country's colonial wars in Africa and elsewhere. Which begs the question of what was Northern Ireland. To the Catholics living there, they definitely saw them selves as being colonized and at war with Britain. 

Much of what happens in the book was front page news. Since I well-remember many of these stories, I thought I knew and understood what they meant and why they were happening. But the strength of Keefe's book is that he follows all these stories back to their beginnings. He clarifies the history, the names, the politics, the twists and turns and intersections — everything that makes understanding the Troubles so difficult. We meet families whose members have been in the IRA for generations; but the parents and children never discuss such things or know for sure that they are all members. In fact, the IRA is a banned organization and membership means prison.

One of those families is the Prices, whose daughter Dolorous, suggests taking the war to England; that "some of it should be fought on their territory." Bombing central London was the result of this idea. The Price sisters and other members of the team were captured. But one member melted into the crowd. His name has never been revealed and he has never been seen again. As a longtime Wisconsinite, this was eerily like The New Year's Gang who bombed the Army Math Research Center on the UW-Madison campus, bringing the (Vietnam) war home —and Leo Burt, the bomber who disappeared.

Dolorous Price (left) and her sister, Marian, were both members of the IRA.

 

The Price sisters were committed to the IRA and doing whatever it took to get Britain out of Ireland and to reunite and free their country. The two go on a hunger strike in prison which terrifies the government in London. As a result the two are force-fed for 167 days, an utterly shocking event that harkens back to the treatment of suffragists at the hands of the government. In the end, the sisters made Margaret Thatcher blink and they were released to an Irish institution which was their goal. 

The Price sisters who did the London bombing were among many IRA activists who were informed on. The Brits believed that "everyone is recruitable" as an informer if you can just find the right button; usually money did the trick in an environment with high unemployment. But if they wanted a specific person to become an informer, the British authorities might arrange for them to lose their job or their house to make it happen. If an IRA member turned informer, the punishment was death — with the body left by the side of the road as a warning to the community. Dolorous Price sometimes drove the car carrying those who were about to "disappear" over the border from Northern Ireland to the Republic. She admitted to taking Jean McConville on that ride. 

Jean McConville with some of her children

 

Like the McConvilles, the Prices ebb and flow through the book, along with large cast of players on both sides, including perhaps the most well-known contemporary Irishman, Gerry Adams. Though Adams has spent his adult life claiming he was never in the IRA, Keefe's book tells a different story. Keefe used testimony from secretly-recorded oral history interviews by IRA members done in association with Boston College; tapes that were never supposed to be revealed until the participants were dead. They were a way to capture the history of this era from the people who took part. But it was an idea that was not well-thought out or legally protected and they were later subpoenaed in court.  

It likely was Adams' ambiguous past that enabled him to bring the IRA into the eventual peace process. Adams moved from fighting to politics; a move that angered his one-time IRA companions who felt the Good Friday Agreement was a worthless compromise because it did not reunite Ireland. According to Keefe, there is a concept in psychology called "moral injury" which is how ex-soldiers, for example, make sense of what they have done in wartime. Dolorous Price — feeling that sense of moral injury — was one who turned on Adams. She'd done horrible things to achieve national liberation and Adams' compromise robbed her of ethical justification. 

The peace process also made it possible for the families of the "disappeared," like the McConvilles, to pursue — and find — answers to the question of what happened to their family members, why and where were the bodies. 

A British soldier on foot-patrol in Belfast, Ireland using two young Irish boys for cover. (Wire Service image)

 

Once I opened this book I could not put it down, finishing it in little over a day of almost constant reading. Despite how depressing it might sound, it was more like reading a novel with  panoramic conspiracies and mysteries that are unraveled as you turn the pages. Perhaps most helpful is the fact that Keefe could interview some of the participants and use the Boston College documents so we could understand their motivations and feelings over the years. Questions will likely always remain over who should be held accountable for this shared history of violence. It wasn't until 2012 that the British government "acknowledged 'frankly' shocking levels of state collusion" for their part in many of the actions during the Troubles. The British Army was in Northern Ireland more as a terror group than as peacekeepers. 

In 2016 the Abbey Theatre in Dublin put on a provocative black comedy about a Belfast loyalist, played by the actor Stephen Rea who was married to Dolorous Price for a number of years. The play, as described by Keefe, seems to encapsulate both his book and Ireland:

"It is a study in the derangement of bigotry, a portrait of Northern Ireland as a land consumed by feverish pathology, an inquiry into the inability to shake free of what has come before."

. . . 

The title of this post is the title of the Seamus Heaney poem where Keefe got the title for his book.

I had not gotten too far into this book when I got a phone call from one of my sisters. She called to tell me about the book she was reading and that I should go get. You guessed it; as has often happened over the years we were both enthralled by the same book. She said it partly caught her eye because our paternal grandmother was a Keefe. No relation as far as we know.

Comments

[Kristin]

I just read it last week. Such an excellent book. I appreciated how Keefe managed to make almost everyone sympathetic and didn't demonize people. My daughter is reading it now, and has plenty of thoughts about Thatcher and Adams that I look forward to discussing when she has finished. I can't decide if Adams is a sociopath or just a consummate politician. Dolours and others seemed to suffer so much physically and emotionally, and he still coyly or adamantly (depending on his mood or the occasion it seems) denies involvement, despite what seems to be indisputable evidence. How can he do that? I guess he really subscribes to Say Nothing.

[Barbara H.]

What a great review of what sounds like a fascinating book. I doubt I will read it but you have really given us a lesson in Irish history. I love that your sister also read it and found it well worth reading.

[Linda from Each Little World]

So glad to hear from someone who's read it and you seem to have had pretty much the same response I did. I got the impression that Adams never actually killed anyone himself though it seems clear he ordered a lot of death and destruction, which is no doubt how he can compartmentalize his IRA past with his present.

All I could think about was how glad I was that my family left at the time of the famine as life in Ireland when I was growing up sounded pretty much like the 19th century. Can you imagine Jean McConville with 10 kids and no hot water and an outhouse. Yikes. But the stories of what happened to McConville's children were so awful. I was amazed as well at the descriptions of the vicious remarks adult Protestants made to little Catholic kids. I am sure that it is exactly what African Americans deal with here all the time.

I found it really interesting how Dolorous Price screwed up her body with the hunger strike. I never thought about the aftermath of such an action. I remember the death of Bobby Sands but was totally shocked to realize that a whole group had died that I never heard about. There is a movie that just came out about Dolorous Price with some of that video where she talks about her actions, along with an actress re-enacting things. You can watch pieces on youtube but I did not want to actually listen to her.

It's nice that your daughter is reading the book because it is one that you definitely want to talk about with someone after you've finished it.

[Linda from Each Little World]

My sister and I often read the same thing at the same time but don't often realize it at the moment it's happening. We live halfway across the country from each other and often used to show up wearing the same shoes or dress!

[Peter/Outlaw]

Sounds like an engrossing read about an awful chapter in human history. How interesting that you and your sister often read or wear the same thing.

[Linda from Each Little World]

I am a big reader, ever since I was a kid. I got into doing book reviews when I was at the newspaper and like to share anything that I think others might find valuable. But you are right about that being a troubled time and it is a troubling book as well.

[Kris P]

Wow. I don't generally gravitate to books on depressing historical events like this (feeling it's difficult enough to immerse myself in current day history-in-process) but you make a compelling case for making this an exception.

[Linda from Each Little World]

I am paying attention to local politics/news but for national news I am mostly looking at headlines and reading only as much as I need to in order to know what's going on. I refuse to listen to the President's voice and we gave up on TV news years ago. Now we hardly listen to anything but BBC and public radio and even that is fairly limited. Much easier to read this stuff. And I am limiting myself since I can't do anything and I don't intend to let the GOP give me an actual heart attack.

All of that is another way of saying it's easier reading about past history where there is context and it is easier to understand why things happened the way they did.

[Dee Nash]

Wow, what a book! I remember the Price sisters and their hunger strike very well. Our families are Irish and German Americans. We are their descendants. Of course, they came in the late 1700s and 1800s. I always followed the news of the Troubles as a teen, but I don't think I ever really understood it. We were too far removed. I do remember being appalled at them force feeding the prisoners on hunger strike. It scared me, the whole thing, the long hunger strike, and the feeding.

We are all so cruel to each other no matter what side we choose. I find it overwhelming. Thank you for your review of the book. I don't know if I could read it. ~~Dee

[Tracy]

I read Keefe's article in the New Yorker and it stuck with me. Thanks for letting me know about the book, I just ordered it.

I read a lot of blogs and yours is my favorite. I think you could write a great book on the creation and life of your garden. The writing and photography would be excellent.

[Linda from Each Little World]

Thanks for those kind words about the blog. If you read the New Yorker article then I think you will appreciate the book. He just had an oped in the NYTimes about how Brexit may affect Northern Ireland and the peace accords.

I am thinking I might do a self-published book. My husband has done some books on Blurb and others can purchase them if they wish, so that is what I might do. These days most books on cooking, gardening, design etc. all are being written by folks who have national reputations. So it is hard to break into that market. Once upon a time I might have been more interested, but these days i think if i get around to anything it will just be a book for me and friends.

[Linda from Each Little World]

Thanks for your comments on the book. It was not an easy read but I am glad I did it. My Dad's family was from Ireland and my Mom's from the French/German border, so I have only become interested in the family backgrounds as I have gotten older. There was never much discussion on my Dad's side about anything Irish and I wish I had asked questions when I had the chance.