The cost of being in the IRA: the story of Dolours Price

I loved Patrick Raden Keefe’s book, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, when it came out in 2020, the true story of the IRA unit known as the Unknowns, and the disappearance and execution (really murder) of Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, who was dragged from her Belfast home in 1972 and killed, execution style, in Southern Ireland. Keefe’s story also centres upon Dolours Price (1950-2013), who was a member of the Unknowns, was engaged in a variety of black ops, and in hindsight, nefarious killings and bombings.

Keefe’s book has now been made into a mini-series, “Say Nothing.” And I found it bingeably excellent. Having had a maternal grandfather in the IRA and an uncle who claimed (falsely) to be a gunrunner for the IRA, and with an acquaintance of my mother who was active in IRA bombings in England, it is no surprise for my fascination with this era in Ireland’s history. I also love Northern Ireland and its people—and lament the tragedy of the Troubles.

The movie, like the book focuses on Dolours Price, and her tortured memory of what she had done. I highly recommend the mini-series (though, note, the one episode on the hunger strike of Dolours and her sister Marian is disturbing) for an excellent understanding of the personal cost of IRA violence.

For me, the series and the book are a great reminder as to why violence is never the way to secure regime change.

PS The book and the mini-series confirmed once again for me that Gerry Adams is lying through his teeth when he says (as he still does) that he was never in the IRA.