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In this current era of burgeoning global populist movements, it can feel like democracy is threatened under attack like never before. But for the nations torn apart by colonial occupation, radical populist movements and militaristic governments have been the norm for decades. Occupying governments and local freedom fighting groups have been swapping civilian casualties in many of these countries for decades, countries like Chile, many African nations, and on a somewhat smaller scale. The story of colonial conflict between the British occupying forces and the Irish nationalists is an extremely complex historical period, as the conflict has transformed over decades, reaching various stalemates, arguably including the current period of relative peace.
In his celebrated 2019 book, Say Nothing, New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe takes on the history of the Irish Troubles with a precision and attention to detail that builds a nuanced account that has previously not been available to a wide audience. Radden Keefe utilizes a secret archive of recorded testimonies from members of the Irish Republican Army, which were previously locked up in the Boston College library, as well as first person interviews with subjects who were alive during the troubles. He basically centers his narrative around the stories of two women, the first being Jean McConville, a widow and mother of ten children who was taken from her home and murdered by the IRA, who suspected her (with very little evidence) of being a British informant. The second woman is Dolours Price, who was a striking young IRA operative who participated in the disappearances of many individuals like Jean McConville, and gained notoriety for her hunger strike in prison after being arrested for car bombings in London.
Say Nothing is not about promoting the arguments of one side of the conflict, but rather an extremely nuanced and even reportage of the conflict. Radden Keefe is not shy in naming the IRA as a terrorist organization, detailing the ways that IRA operatives sacrificed civilian lives in order to gain notoriety for their cause. He also acknowledges the various insidious forces put in place by the British in Northern Ireland, who also had no qualms about sacrificing civilians in their quest to stamp out the uprising. He describes the oppressive atmosphere in Northern Ireland, where Catholics who were discriminated against began to peacefully protest British rule, and upon meeting resistance, devolved into a violent group of armed youths. He describes various wings of the IRA, mostly focusing on the Provos who came to form Sinn Fein party, the IRA’s political arm.
Say Nothing reads in parts like a delicious spy thriller or political drama, exposing double and triple agents between both the IRA and the British government, who were both highly involved in espionage. He also explore the political dramas that allowed Sinn Fein to come into power, and their subsequent disavowal of the militaristic IRA, which ruffled more than a few feathers. But perhaps what is most powerful in its narrative is its central focus on the human cost of the conflict. Radden Keefe describes the decline of former IRA operatives who wasted away in prison and sacrificed a majority of their own lives, not to mention other lives, for ideals that they never got to see come to fruition. He includes testimony from Jean McConville’s children, who were deprived of a caretaker, left completely alone and without answers. The violence of the IRA tore apart many families like theirs. If Radden Keefe convicts anyone of guilt in this story, it is perhaps the Irish politician Gerry Adams, who rose to prominence as a peace broker and disavowed his IRA history, calling his former friends and colleagues who asked him to confront his history deranged liars. Adams whitewashed his youth and disowned the truth that he was in fact the man who gave the orders for many individuals to be killed, including Jean McConville. For Radden Keefe, it seems the cardinal sin is betrayal of one’s personal and national ideals, in other words, selling out. This is a factual historical account of the Irish Troubles, but it is also a treatise on the importance of truth and humanity in the face of rampant violence.