Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

This book fulfills the needs of many of us who have relied upon limited accounts in US news media to understand the decades of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Its detail complements what I learned during a visit to Northern Ireland in 2010 which helped me to understand the causes and impacts of the strife there and to anticipate the risks to the stability of the intervening two decades of "peace" which are threatened as decisions about post-Brexit borders loom.My caveat about the value of the book is that for those who may not closely read and assimilate the information in the relevant pages, for example 274 and 333, the casual reader may reach the conclusion that the paramilitary republican groups were the initial, and the sole, perpetrators of violence. Sifting the books' contents closely, one does find elements which negate that conclusion. On page 274 we learn that loyalist groups, supported by members of the British state, killed "hundreds" of civilians. On page 333, this charge is reiterated and the refrains, "What about Bloody Sunday?" and "What about Bloody Friday?" are charged as if in justifying one action by another. Further there are suggestions that the authorities may have tended to rely more heavily on transcripts that revealed violence by republicans than those of loyalists, perhaps because the latter might reveal the role that those authorities had played in league with the loyalists' causes.The complex nature of this tragic time should not be reached shallowly by readers' impressions. I call for greater balance in leading to understanding what drove these events. In 2010, I visited the Bloody Sunday museum in Derry not long after British officials finally officially acknowledged that their earlier defense of the actions leading to the death of 14 individuals engaged in a peace march had not been accurate. Finally, after more than three decades, it was admitted that 14 innocent and unarmed peace marchers were mowed down, some killed by a shot in the back while running away, by a military acting without justifiable provocation. The author did well characterize the disproportionate violence by the authorities in his account of the marchers who were met by authorities at Burntollet Bridge but here the outcome was not as mortal even if it fueled the subsequent violence in reprise.Personalizing the victim who was the widowed mother of 10 and following through with descriptions of the impact on her children might cause many readers to assign all the blame for The Troubles on the IRA. Having heard the story of an adolescent school girl who was killed by a rubber bullet from a military gun, her blood cleaned off the sidewalk by the mothers in the neighborhood, I had acquired a personal acquaintance with this victim of the authorities. By also personalizing the victims of violence that was brought by authorities, among these, the little girl hit by the rubber bullet or the 14 peace marchers who were intentionally killed, the author may have been able to achieve better balance. Surely, too, the author might have personalized a few of the victims among the "hundreds" that were killed by the loyalists? Knowing the innocence of those victims and the impact on their loved ones that followed from their senseless killing would have provided the balance that many readers might benefit from. Personalizing only one victim has rendered imbalance.A close reader already acquainted with the events may not have needed a balanced rendering but those readers, so informed, may not have needed to read the book. I only "down-star" my rating because of concern that blame needs to be balanced so that cause is understood and change can be embraced. Staying in a B&B in Derry, we met a South African who was there to consult on Truth and Reconciliation. That program involves divulging guilt to achieve reconciliation. What can the perpetrators and victims of violence in Northern Ireland learn when there is balance among the blameful?

I visited Northern Ireland as a psychologist, in 1997. I had been working with families of murder victims, and had the chance to learn about the differences between street violence in America and political violence in Northern Ireland. Nothing prepared me for what I found.Keefe's book is the best book I have read about the reasons for, and impact of, political violence in Ireland. It goes deeper into the minds and lives of IRA operatives than anything I have read. It is terribly sad. And it is chillingly detailed. This is truly one of the finest pieces of investigative reporting and narrative nonfiction I have ever read. One other thing: this book provides a warning for those in America who ever consider the use of paramilitary violence to achieve extreme ends.

After 40 plus years of researching Irish history and collecting 3500 books on Ireland and the diaspora, this book ranks in the top ten, if not in the top five. If you care an iota about modern Irish history, this should be the first book you buy this year. It is spectacular.

From the description of this book, I thought it was mostly about Jean McConville, the woman who disappeared during the Troubles. And I thought that the history of the Troubles would come second, but I was much mistaken. Jean is barely mentioned in the first half of the book and instead we are treated to an in depth discussion of what the Troubles were and what led to them, with introductions to far too many characters for me to keep track of. The more I read, the more I wished the author would finally start telling us about Jean, as that is what drew me to this book in the first place. It's not until 40% that we start to find out more about Jean, and since the notes section starts at 60% of the total book, this is 2/3 of the way through.The book itself is well-written and filled with interesting information. My main issues lies with the way it is marketed, or more accurately, what I perceived the book to be about. It is not a true crime book where we follow around detectives or amateur sleuths. More than anything, it is a modern history book about the Troubles, their legacy, and a few key players during this time. The McConvilles as a whole have a rather small part, despite what the description and the introduction would have you believe. Every time a new chapter started that introduced a new character and pushed the actual solving of the crime farther off, I found myself wanting to skim since I knew there was no way I was going to remember yet another name.2.5 stars rounded up since it was more of a perception issue than an issue with the book itself.

A subpoena was served on Boston College in Massachusetts to get secret documents locked in the university archives. The information detailed incidents about what happened during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Catholics and Protestants were locked in a struggle for control. Youngsters, doing the bidding of the IRA (Irish Republican Army), planted bombs and carried out murders. It was an horrific time that few outside Ireland understand.The book opens with the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten. However, this is not a true crime book. After the introduction to Jean we hear nothing more until nearly the end of the book. The intervening chapters detail the bitter conflict. We learn of terrorist activities and get to meet some of the actors, like the Price sisters and other members of the IRA. Although there are a great many characters, the book is well written and easy to follow.I highly recommend this book. It is the history of a terrible period in Northern Ireland. Before reading it, I knew very little about The Troubles. This book paints a picture of how society was torn apart and people committed acts that haunted them for their entire lives.I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

This non-fiction account of specific lives during The Toubles in Northern Ireland is thoroughly researched and developed, and very well-written. I applaud Radden Keefe's persistence over four years of study, research, and interviews to give us a compelling story of Jean McConville and her family, as well as other major players of the time--Gerry Adams, Delours Price, Brendan Hughes.The IRA and its members often had a romantic and heroic place in the media, people who were willing to go to extreme lengths in the name of religious and cultural freedom. But those years happened well before 9/11 when terroristic violence, unfortunately, became a common crime. Reading Say Nothing perhaps exposed some of my own religious and cultural bias (I am an Irish Catholic), and forced me to see all the sides--the British, the Loyalists, the IRA--in a more objective light.If I have any critique at all of the book, I would say that I wished it had moved a bit faster. I sometimes found myself having to refer to my mental roster to recall who was who, particularly as the time periods shifter frequently.

This is an extraordinary book. Most histories are either panoramic in scope or else told through the eyes of individuals - this one does both and retains its readability at the same time. I was unable to put it down and finished it in the early hours of the morning, which for me is a rarity.The complexity of the subject and of the groups and characters involved has produced many books which deliver a piecemeal picture that in many respects fails to get to grips with what is essentially a tragedy that happens over a small geographical area, including people who become well-known and who know other people from the same places: Dolours Price, Seamus Heaney, Gerry Adams, Freddie Scappaticci, and so on. This book presents the claustrophobic nature of the Troubles like no other I've read, creating a believable picture of a society cowed into silence and sectarianism by sheer proximity and social pressure. Nobody can speak out because everyone is afraid of the consequences, whether from the security services, neighbours, or local paramilitaries, and consequently, secrets abound and continue to contaminate even the present day.I grew up in the north of England, in a social setting very similar in its lack of affluence, its divisions and its religious and ethnic allegiances, and it's horrifying to me that I can imagine a similar situation in my home town, except for the fact that history makes no claims on the lives of individuals in the same way as it does in Belfast.I hope this book will set the bar for increasing openness about the past and that more families will eventually find closure and peace.

I have lived through the entire period of the Troubles and didn't particularly wish to revisit these events. However, I found 'Say nothing' to be a very readable insight into the mindset of key IRA figures as well as their victims, particularly the McConvilles. It was particularly revealing how betrayed many of the IRA activists felt at the Good Friday settlement which Gerry Adams eventually settled for. i was also struck by how much the McConvilles family were deserted by those who preached compassion and love, probably through fear. I felt at all times what I was reading was factually correct and the truth and this book demonstrates this better than any other book I have read

Completely unputdownable, this moves beyond a dry history of the Troubles by focusing in the first two sections on the activities, actions and convictions of four people involved in the Provisional IRA (though Adams continues to deny his own involvement): the sisters Dolours and Marian Price, Brendan Hughes and Gerry Adams.It's in the third section that the 'memory' of the title comes in as Keefe explores the post-Good Friday Agreement narrativisation and the personal and national reckoning that has and still is taking place in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the whole topic has an added urgency given the implications for NI of the Brexit vote - something that barely raised a murmur in the pre-referendum hustings.Keefe traces the tragedies of Northern Ireland, almost completely focused here on Belfast, from the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969, the escalation through the 1970s, the bombing campaigns in London, the Thatcher years and the H-block/hunger strikes in the 1980s through to the rise of Sinn Fein and the current peace agreement. He makes it personal and while it may not be neutral (there are barely any mentions of loyalist paramilitaries - as Keefe acknowledges in his notes) it does recount tragic tales of both the British soldiers and their republican enemies.Interspersed with this history is the story of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, who was 'disappeared' by the Provisional IRA in 1972. It's only at the end that her story becomes integrated with Keefe's overall narrative - so if you're looking for a 'true crime' account of this case it's best to look elsewhere.Detailed, humane, fluently written - this is utterly gripping and a timely reminder of our recent past.

I thought this was a brilliant book. Disagreement or otherwise of this conclusions about who fired the fatal shot do not detract from a fascinating and well written account of the troubles. I found it gripping.