See something. Say Nothing.
No one dies in the bank robbery scene from Say Nothing.
VOICE OVER OPENING: (Spoken over a map of Ireland) “The thing about Irish people, we’ve been arguing over the same shite for 800 years. See, it used to be that this was our island till the British took it off us. The Irish tried to fight them out, but we couldn’t quite finish the job. So instead, the British kept the top part for themselves and the IRA has been fighting a bloody battle to reunite the country ever since. Some die by bomb. Some die by bullet. Others simply disappear.”
Back-to-back scenes at the beginning of Episode Two in the new Hulu Series Say Nothing pretty much capture the absurdity and deadly seriousness of this look at The Troubles In Northern Ireland that began in 1972.
SCENE: Provisional IRA prospects Dolours Price and her sister Marian are dressed as nuns as they walk to a bank they’re going to rob, or rather, from which they will liberate funds for the IRA. Warning shots are fired inside the bank but no one gets hurt. Dolours speaks gently to the bank clerk as she orders her to fill up the satchel with cash. As she’s leaving, she spots some more currency in the drawer and asks about it. The clerk whispers somewhat conspiratorially that Dolores doesn’t want to take that cash because, “You don’t want those bills. Those are the marked ones.” Turns out it was an unauthorized bank job that netted less than fifty dollars. But Gerry Adams admires the initiative of the Price sisters and the publicity generated by their Sisters act. They’re soon taking the oath to join th IRA, which at the time (1972) was pretty much an all-male organization..
SCENE: General Frank Kitson of the British Army arrives in Belfast by helicopter with his ten-year-old daughter Penelope to take command of the effort to defeat the Provos. He earned his spurs putting down the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the 1950s. A bomb explodes nearby. General Kitson looks concerned. “That’s why we need you daddy, love. He’s come to win the war,” says a British soldier. “It’s not a war, it’s an insurgency,” says Penelope. “Gold star,” says the General. “Remember why we aren’t calling it that?” “Cause calling it a war gives the terrorists legitimacy,” she says. “Very good,” says the General.
On the streets of West Belfast, a warning to anyone who would cooperate with the local officers of Public Safety Northern Ireland, the organization that replaced the Royal Irish Constabulary. (Photos by Bill Gallagher 2016)
The book Say Nothing by Patrick Raden Keefe was published more than five years ago. The New Yorker article it was based on came out in 2015. To refresh your memories, Say Nothing is the story of some of the horrendous crimes committed in the name of freedom for All Ireland by the IRA and in the name of suppressing the IRA by the British Army. There were bad people on both sides.
Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was kidnapped one night from the Division Flats while her kids were getting ready to eat some takeout. She and the kids knew some of the kidnappers; they were their neighbors in the apartment complex in West Belfast. She was taken away for being a “tout” (informer) and for being sympathetic to the Brits. She never returned to her children.
If you’re not yet read Say Nothing or (like me) read it long enough ago (June 2019) to have forgotten some of the details, don’t worry. The nine-part series will put you right back in the midst of The Troubles.
Gerry Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA or participating in any IRA-related violence.
Those words appear on screen at the conclusion of each episode. Keefe, the author and executive producer of the series, says he had nothing to do with the disclaimer; that it was something the lawyers came up with. Adams denies involvement with the IRA to this day. It is said he apologized to the McConville family for what happened to Helen. But that apology came behind closed doors, says her son Michael, and he never accepted it.
Tyrrell’s, the coffee shop on Falls Road where Gerry is a regular.”Gerry loves his lattes,” the shop owner told me.
McConville Family Reaction
There’s been none from the surviving children of Jean McConville to the Hulu series. But when it was announced that Keefe’s book would get the television treatment, the oldest son was upset. "I doubt they even think of us as real people. They call it drama but for us it’s trauma," said Michael McConville, who’s shown in the series trying unsuccessfully to get into the van with his ma when she’s driven away by IRA operatives.
The Divis Tower in West Belfast, where Say Nothing is set.
Headline: Bestseller "Say Nothing" is really a get Gerry Adams exercise
Niall O’Dowd, well-known for his role as journalist/activist in helping move the Good Friday Agreement along, didn’t have much good to say about Keefe’s book when he reviewed it in Irish Central in April 2019. “Patrick Radden Keefe’s best-selling book uses Jean McConville’s disappearance to open a forensic examination of Northern Ireland’s Troubles but his critical insight is lacking and is very much flawed,” but O’Dowd did admit, it’s a hell of a read, “The prose and narrative are superb even if the critical insight is lacking.”
Torture Tactics
It’s long been debated whether torture works. The takeaway from Say Nothing is that it does not. Adams comes in for an extreme beating when, after being arrested in his bedroom during a rare overnight stay with his wife, he denies being Gerry Adams. “My name is Joe McGuigan,” he repeats to the astonished Brits who keep beating him. When he’s finally released it’s to attend some very preliminary peace talks. Which go nowhere.
The working title (for some reason) was Beaumont
From the Shepton Mallet News: The producers have said the series is set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, titled 'Beaumont' and would follow the lives of several characters in Belfast during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. But according to the Irish News, the series is based on Patrick Radden Keefe's best-selling book "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland".
The series delves into the chilling life, death, and legacy of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten. Abducted by the PIRA in 1972, her remains were only discovered three decades later in 2003. Eds Note: Shepton Mallet is the name of the prison in England where the scenes of the internment of Dolours and Marian Price were filmed. (It’s now a tourist attraction.)
Shepton Mallet Prison in England, constructed in 1625, is where the jail scenes of the hunger strike by th Price sisters was filmed.
Historical Context: Beware of Spoiler Alerts
There have been tons of reviews of Say Nothing published around the world; such is the reach of the modern streaming service/television mini-series. While the book sold millions of copies and even made Number 19 on the New York Times list of the Best 100 Books of This Century, the series will reach many more people in ways the written word can’t. The review in an English newspaper, the (Manchester) Guardian, says it best, “If the subject matter of Say Nothing were fiction, it would be a fantastically entertaining and emotive thriller. But it isn’t fiction.” And “It’s a terrible story – many terrible stories – of a terrible time that is barely over. And it is a beautifully acted interrogation of the power of silence, the loyalty it proves and the burden it brings. However, it feels overly sympathetic to its main characters – the sisters, Brendan Hughes and Gerry Adams.”
It’s not Black and White
“I think that people may come away from the series with mixed feelings about some of the characters and, in fact, I hope that they do,” series main writer Joshua Zetumner tells IrishCentral. ““Whether or not an audience supports the actions of some of the characters like the Price sisters, I hope they come away with a question like which is what does it mean to really live your beliefs?”