How Say Nothing’s Characters Compare to Their Real Life Counterparts

As a storyteller immersed in the intricate tapestry of human lives, I find myself captivated by the remarkable figures brought to life in “Say Nothing.” Each character, from Dolours Price and Marianne to Stephen Rea and Bridie Dolan, embodies a unique blend of resilience, courage, and vulnerability that echoes through the tumultuous backdrop of Northern Ireland’s troubled past.

The initial episodes of Say Nothing showcase daring exploits and heists, but FX’s adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s gripping 2018 book is essentially a tale of tragedy interspersed with fleeting rays of hope. A mother of ten, who is widowed, mysteriously vanishes from her home in full view of her children at the hands of her neighbors. Two sisters pledge to sacrifice their lives for a united Ireland and narrowly survive while on hunger strike in prison following bombings at London’s Old Bailey and Ministry of Agriculture. A charismatic leader rises to prominence as a peacemaker in politics, but his comrades mourn and fume over his dismissal of their shared past. As they grapple with the violence that they either inflicted, experienced, or both during The Troubles—a term used for the nearly three-decade period of intense sectarian conflict between unionist (predominantly Protestant) and republican (predominantly Catholic) militants over the political and social destiny of Northern Ireland, or simply “the North,” depending on one’s perspective of history and political leanings.

Following Ireland’s independence from Great Britain in 1920, Northern Ireland remained under British rule, creating a starkly divided society where Protestants held significant political, economic, and social advantages over Catholics. In the 1960s, Catholic advocates initiated a civil rights movement inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement for racial equality. Unfortunately, this campaign didn’t succeed in 1969, leading to British intervention to maintain peace. However, this intervention escalated the conflict into The Troubles, marked by three decades of turmoil, military occupation, and unyielding positions held by unionists and loyalists. After the Good Friday Agreement was implemented in 1999, many ex-paramilitaries found themselves without direction, while their memories and perceptions of the conflict remained bound by omertà-like vows of silence.

The title command of the series, “Say Nothing,” seems contradictory to the characters’ compulsion to discuss their personal experiences and actions towards others. Characters like Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price felt an intense need to share their lives and deeds, despite doing so in secret and under constant threat. This article delves into how these depicted lives and actions in “Say Nothing” correspond with historical accounts as presented by Keefe and others, to identify instances where the series may drift into fictional territory.

(Note: Due to Say Nothing’s depiction of historical events, this article includes spoilers.)

Jean McConville (played by Judith Roddy)

As a passionate moviegoer, I’d rephrase it like this: In the gritty backdrop of Divis Flats, a colossal public housing complex in West Belfast, I, Jean McConville, was a resilient widowed mother of ten. The chilling opening scene of the gripping series “Say Nothing” unfolds around my abduction from home in late 1972. The enigma surrounding my disappearance, execution, and the long-hidden truth about my remains serves as the driving force behind the series’ interwoven narratives.

In its depiction of McConville, the book “Say Nothing” closely follows the facts as presented by Keefe in both his book and the 2015 “New Yorker” article “Where The Bodies are Buried.” Though she appears infrequently on-screen, her presence is crucial for the impact of her body being found in 2003, and also for the dramatic confrontation between PSNI detectives and suspected IRA leader Gerry Adams in the ninth episode, which took place 11 years later. In this encounter, Adams firmly denies any role in McConville’s abduction and murder.

Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price offer additional information during their interviews with Anthony “Mackers” McIntyre, who is working on an oral history project about The Troubles at Boston College. They allege that McConville was an informant (tout) and claim directly that Gerry Adams instructed her to be taken across the border to the Republic of Ireland, where she was subsequently executed and buried. Although the series seems hesitant about the idea that McConville was a tout, it implies through imagery rather than words that the primary cause of her abduction and murder may have been the resentment and disapproval from neighbors due to her refusal to hide guns used in IRA operations and later for providing aid to an injured British soldier. Despite the specific accusations against her, Jean McConville was a victim of a war crime, as she was secretly taken away by the IRA to prevent them from having to publicly dispose of the body of a young widow and mother on the street.

Dolours Price (Young Dolours played by Lola Petticrew; Older Dolours played by Maxine Peake) Marian Price (Young Marian played by Hazel Doupe; Older Marian played by Helen Behan)

Growing up with staunchly Republican parents in predominantly Catholic West Belfast, Dolours and Marian Price were prime candidates for IRA recruitment. However, unlike other women who typically filled support roles within the organization, these sisters had a unique ambition: they wanted to be active combatants, not just rolling bandages or serving tea. The Price sisters, being Albert and Chrissie’s daughters, defied expectations by seeking frontline action. Their femininity and attractive looks worked in their favor, confounding the British Army’s image of a paramilitary member. This disguise enabled them to perform activities that would have attracted suspicion or negative attention if done by men, such as carrying guns concealed in handbags and transporting explosives from the Republic of Ireland to Belfast without raising alarm.

In Say Nothing, the story closely follows real events about Dolours and Marian, but some details are enhanced or altered for dramatic effect. For instance, the plot to detonate four cars bombs in London, as seen in episode five, is presented as a well-thought-out plan by Dolours and Marian. However, according to Keefe, while the concept was “at least partially” Dolours Price’s idea, the development of this idea into a workable plan was a collaborative process that initially involved a failed attempt to firebomb London due to technical flaws in the explosives. Members of the Belfast Brigade helped refine the plan for the car-bombing mission.

In this sixth and outstanding episode of the series, the focus is solely on the Price sisters’ harrowing ordeal at HMP Brixton, where they undertook a 206-day hunger strike in a bid to pressure the British government into transferring them to a prison in Northern Ireland. Their remarkable resilience during this fast was facilitated by daily force-feedings, a brutal and inhumane procedure that became untenable when the sisters’ physical resistance made it impossible to safely perform the feedings. Throughout their ordeal, Dolours formed a bond with a sympathetic doctor named Dr. Mansuri, who did his best to minimize harm during these forced feedings. In reality, Dolours and Marian had a caring relationship with an older prison doctor named Ian Blyth.

In the series’ final episode, Dolours is outraged by Gerry Adams’s presence at Brendan Hughes’s funeral and his quiet insistence on taking a spot as one of the pallbearers marching his bitterly estranged friend’s casket to the cemetery. Her comments are so loud that Mackers drags her away from the funeral procession, where she really unloads, yelling “This is a hijacking! Brendan Hughes wanted that man dead!” In Keefe’s telling, Dolours was critical of Adams inserting himself as a pallbearer, but “felt something unexpected: a pang of sympathy” for her former friend, who now “looked so uneasy” and “lonely.”

Before her death by an apparent overdose of prescription drugs in January 2013, Dolours Price confessed to Mackers in an interview that she had driven Jean McConville across the border, leading to her demise. At the time of Dolours’s passing, Marian Price was imprisoned, but was granted a brief leave for Dolours’s funeral, and was released from prison later that year. Although strongly suspected as the murderer of Jean McConville in both the book and the series, Marian Price, who is still alive, denies any part in McConville’s death.

Brendan Hughes (Young Hughes played by Anthony Boyle; Older Hughes played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor)

In many circles, Hughes, known for his dark features – hair, eyes, and mustache – was the commander of D Company within the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA. The book Say Nothing portrays him as an appealing and inspiring leader, a choice that any soldier would be eager to follow due to his blend of charm and courage based on principle. Unlike his close comrade Gerry Adams, whose strategic acumen and survival instincts led him to frequent different secure hideouts, Hughes was most comfortable in the bustling streets.

Living such a perilous life filled with great dangers was Hughes’ way, yet he benefited from a protection scarcely imaginable now: the British Army had no idea what he looked like. His father ensured this by destroying all images of his son, and because Hughes had never been imprisoned, he possessed no criminal history. The second episode underscores the vast resources and intelligence efforts needed to locate and potentially apprehend him. Frank Kitson, a British intelligence specialist, mobilized several undercover agents in an ice cream van cruising West Belfast’s streets, secretly filming residents and gradually coercing one of Brendan’s associates into revealing the identities of everyone in D Company, enabling the Army to track down Hughes. The situation escalates into a breathtaking sequence featuring aerial shots as Hughes, intimately familiar with the neighborhood, navigates through streets, backyards, and houses to reach a local hideout where he keeps an Armalite and ammunition. He narrowly avoids death after slicing his radial artery during escape, but survives due to Gerry’s timely arrival with a veterinarian sympathetic to the cause who tends to his wounds.

In “Where The Bodies Are Buried” by Keefe, there are primarily consistent story elements, with a few notable exceptions: an ice cream truck and a veterinarian. However, Keefe’s book clarifies these discrepancies, explaining that the vehicle was actually green and the character referred to as a veterinarian is a local heart surgeon instead.

Gerry Adams (Young Adams played by Josh Finan; Older Adams played by Michael Colgan)

Gerry Adams is generally the most recognized individual to U.S. viewers of “Say Nothing,” having begun his public life in the late 1960s as an ardent civil rights activist and largely concluded it in 2018 as a respected elder statesman who led the republican political party Sinn Féin for 35 years, and a symbol of the peace process that culminated in the 1998 ratification of the Good Friday Agreement. However, because of his prominence or perhaps due to it, distinguishing fact from fiction in Adams’ case is particularly complex, almost requiring a reversal of this entire examination. Namely, while the series repeatedly portrays his involvement and leadership within the IRA’s Belfast Brigade, he insists that he was never involved in any such activities. Consequently, each of “Say Nothing”‘s nine episodes ends with a disclaimer: “Gerry Adams has always maintained that he was not a member of the IRA or participated in any IRA-related violence.

The consistent repetition of disclaimers builds an increasingly dark and absurd situation. It’s questionable how Adams can refute the detailed accounts of him being the IRA leader, as provided by Dolours Price, Brendan Hughes, and corroborated in Keefe’s book. This work also covers Adams’ imprisonment at Long Kesh (later HMP Maze) from 1973 to 1977, his close relationship with cellmate Hughes, and his authorship of a long-running column in the IRA newspaper, An Phoblacht, which was later taken over by Sinn Féin. In an interview with the BBC in 2018, Adams navigated this complex issue by stating that he was always a republican activist and didn’t distance himself from the IRA, but saw no need to join because he was already involved in Sinn Féin and understood that “the course of republicanism was to build politically” towards a negotiated settlement. Keefe’s book delves into Adams’ growing belief that both armed struggle and political change would be crucial parts of achieving a peaceful, unified Ireland, while pointing out that his denial of ever being in the IRA fueled a lingering sense of ambiguity, even after the Good Friday Agreement was passed.

In the unveiling of interviews involving Price and Hughes, the PSNI accumulated sufficient proof to apprehend and interrogate Adams concerning the vanishings of Jean McConville, Joe Lynskey, Seamus Wright, and Kevin McKee. The concluding installment vividly portrays this 2014 arrest and interrogation in a striking sequence that allows Adams an opportunity to clarify his actions, yet at the same time, it compels him to do so without any overt gestures of breaking the fourth wall or expressing disbelief, as such moments would be unnecessary, given the impact of the evidence presented.

Anthony “Mackers” McIntyre (played by Seamus O’Hara)

In the initial episode of “Say Nothing“, we encounter Anthony “Mackers” McIntyre, who puts Dolours Price at ease as he prepares his recording devices in her Dublin residence. This conversation, which is part of Boston College’s oral history Belfast Project, will remain confidential until her passing. Throughout the series, Mackers acts as a spiritual guide without religious affiliation, posing insightful questions and allowing both Dolours and Brendan to share their burdens.

Mackers, as presented in Say Nothing, is less fictionalized than whittled down. For example, the easy rapport between him and his interview subjects is real, because he was a former IRA volunteer himself, and was close friends with Hughes, with whom he’d served time before becoming an historian post-incarceration. The Belfast Project organizers hired Mackers to conduct interviews with republicans because he “was at ease with retired revolutionaries, which suggested that they might open up to him, on tape, about secrets they had kept for decades.”

Frank Kitson (played by Rory Kinnear)

In the second installment of “Say Nothing“, Brigadier Frank Kitson, a seasoned British Army Counterintelligence expert, along with his quick-witted daughter Penelope, arrive in Belfast via helicopter. Their appearance and command signify a significant shift for local IRA operatives, as Kitson leverages his extensive experience from the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya during the 1950s to effectively thwart insurgency activities. By training his team (including one woman) to employ tactics such as allurements, threats, and violence, Kitson successfully identifies key targets within D Company, including Brendan Hughes and Gerry Adams. The series concludes with a chilling scene where Kitson dismisses the potential fatalities of two high-value IRA informants, Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, at the end of episode four.

In essence, “Say Nothing” may not fully capture the extent to which Kitson’s tenure from 1970-72 in Belfast and beyond significantly worsened relations between the Catholic community and the security forces. As one Northern Irish politician put it, “he likely did more than any other individual to strain those relationships.” The show portrays his arrival during a time of intense conflict between republicans and the Army. However, a closer look at history reveals that Kitson’s implementation of counterinsurgent methods (often referred to as “low-intensity operations,” though they involved assassinations of IRA operatives by an elite squad) and the surge in deployed troops served more like fuel on smoldering embers, threatening a fragile peace between the occupiers and the occupied.

Bridie Dolan (played by Eileen Walsh)

Dolours and Marian Price devoted their youth to caring for their aunt Bridie Dolan, who required help with daily tasks like bathing, eating, and even smoking constantly. In her younger years, Bridie was known for making bombs for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Unfortunately, she suffered severe injuries, losing both her sight and hands in an explosion. Due to this, their aunt is deeply admired by them as a symbol of republican self-sacrifice.

In the television show Say Nothing and Keefe’s 2015 article for The New Yorker, there is scarcely any difference in how Auntie Bridie is portrayed: “She had suffered a terrible injury at age 27, accidentally detonating a gelignite cache in an Irish Republican Army explosives dump. The explosion took her hands and left her blind.” In the fictional narrative of the show, Aunt Bridie, who appears in episode four, suggests to Dolours and Marian that perhaps someone should remind the English they are at war with Northern Ireland, which may have sparked their idea to bomb London. This minor plot detail seems to be a creative addition, as there is no evidence to confirm it actually occurred.

Stephen Rea (played by Damien Molony)

In simpler terms, Stephen Rea is one of the main characters that American viewers may recognize from the show “Say Nothing.” Born in Belfast, he is best known for his Academy Award-nominated role as an IRA gunman in “The Crying Game,” though he appears extensively only in episode seven, portraying a stage actor. In episode five, we see that Dolours is deeply touched by his performance in the Brian Friel play “The Freedom of The City” she attends before the 1973 London bombing mission. Their lives intersect again when a newly released Dolours strikes up a conversation with him at a Belfast bar, the Lyric Theatre. Both are starstruck by each other and quickly fall in love. By the end of episode eight, they have divorced after having two sons together, and Dolours is struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction.

It’s not exactly known where and how Rea and Price reconnected following her prison release, but they got married in 1983 and divorced in 2003; he served as a pallbearer at her funeral in 2013. One aspect the miniseries overlooked is this: From 1988-1994, the British government enforced a ban on airing the voices of leaders tied to terrorist organizations in Northern Ireland. This restriction primarily targeted Sinn Féin and Gerry Adams. To accurately report Adams’ statements, the BBC resorted to hiring local Northern Irish actors like Stephen Rea to vocalize his words during this period.

2024-11-17 07:55