"Say Nothing" by Patrick Radden Keefe

Leafing through the course catalogue in the summer of 1981 (38 years ago now -- yikes!!), trying to choose some courses for my third year of university (I was in a four-year double honours arts program -- English & political studies), my interest was piqued by one called "Radical Political Movements."

I'm not quite sure what I expected or if I knew what I was in for -- there was (& probably still is) no one less radical/more cautious/conventional than I am, lol (childlessness aside, of course...!) -- but I thought it would be interesting.

It was.

It was a small class, with perhaps a dozen students, tops -- three hours, once a week.  I was one of just two or perhaps three women. Many of the guys were rumpled, shaggy, long-haired hippie types. ;)  One of them later became president of the campus NDP (New Democratic Party -- Canada's left-wing/socialist party) club.  The prof addressed the men as "Mr." and the women as "Miss."

For the first term, our main project was to choose a book about a radical political movement, figure or philosophy and present it to the class. In the second term, we'd do a major research paper expanding on some aspect of the radical political movement/figure/philosophy in that book. 

The professor said the book we chose could be fiction or non-fiction. We had to run our choice by him first. I remember some of my classmates' choices included "The Wretched of the Earth" by Frantz Fanon and "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter (this was in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president). One of the few other women in the class chose to study Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist from around the time of the Russian Revolution. I'd never heard of most of these writers, political figures or titles before.

I already had an idea of what book I wanted to choose, and what movement I wanted to study. That summer, I'd read "Trinity" a novel by Leon Uris (who also wrote "Exodus," among other titles), a romance between a Catholic Republican patriot and a Protestant Loyalist girl, set in Ireland during the 1800s. I proposed to use that for my book report, and study the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and the cause of Irish independence for my second-term paper.

My professor approved, although he was clearly amused by my book choice. I can still see the smirks from my classmates as I earnestly made my presentation. Clearly, I was WAY out of my depth here.  I struggled to make a meaningful contribution to the class discussions. Nevertheless, I wound up with a B+ for both my paper & for the course as a whole, which helped me make the dean's honour list that year.

I don't remember a whole lot about "Trinity," my paper, my thesis or what my conclusions were, but I do remember realizing (as I waded through stacks and stacks of dry books on hundreds of years of Irish history for my research, wondering what I'd gotten myself into...!) that the situation was extremely complex (so many different factions!) and deeply rooted, and that there were no easy solutions.

There were several reasons why I chose the topic I did, beyond enjoying "Trinity."  ;)  My mother's father's family was Irish (from counties that included Armagh in the north, as well as Cavan, Leitrim, Carlow & Wicklow in the south). (All the different branches I've been able to trace so far left Ireland for Scotland &/or North America sometime between the 1820s & 1860s). My great-grandfather was born on St. Patrick's Day, 1871 (in a small town north of Toronto).  It wasn't until I was a teenager (or possibly even older) that I realized we were actually Protestant (Episcopalian/Anglican)/Orange Irish. My great-grandfather was a member of the Orange Lodge;  my mother has his Lodge song book with his name & the year (1868) inscribed on the inside cover. The content, by today's standards, is politically incorrect in the extreme...! 

And of course, my growing-up years (the 1960s & 1970s) coincided with an escalation of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The nightly news was full of stories about protests, riots, bombings, executions and assassinations. In 1976, when I was 15, two Irish women, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to promote peace and non-violence.  In the spring of 1981, a few months before I began my class, 10 members of the Provisional IRA died in prison, one after another, in a staggered hunger strike. The first to die (and best known) was Bobby Sands, age 27. His funeral was attended by 100,000 people;  his death led to riots and a new surge in IRA activity.

I never quite understood what exactly what "the Troubles" were all about -- other than the Protestants seemed to hate the Catholics, and vice versa;  that the (mostly Catholic) south had gained independence from Britain in the 1920s, after a centuries-long struggle, but the (mostly Protestant) north was still part of the United Kingdom, and that remained a source of conflict. This course seemed like a good opportunity to learn more about the situation.

*** *** ***

I wish that I'd had "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Radden Keefe to read and use in my research back then.  "Say Nothing" tells the story of the Troubles, spanning some 50 years, from the late 1960s through the 1970s to the present day, through the lives of several intersecting characters (as well as a host of other lesser figures).

There is Jean McConville, a 39-year-old recently widowed mother of 10 (!) children, who was taken by a masked mob from her Belfast apartment in December 1972 to a waiting car, and never seen again. (The story of the McConville family broke my heart.)

There is Gerry Adams, who evolves from IRA strategist/leader (although he has never admitted to being an IRA member) to wily politician.  And there is Brendan Hughes, the ferocious IRA mastermind and Adams' one-time brother in arms, who turns on him in the wake of the 1998 Good Friday Accord which finally brought peace -- albeit an imperfect and uneasy peace -- to Northern Ireland.

Perhaps most interesting for me, there are the charismatic Price sisters, Dolours & Marian, who grew up in a staunchly republican family and became the first women to join the IRA as field soldiers, when they were still barely out of their teens. (The book's cover is a photo of Dolours Price's partially concealed face.)

I don't want to give too much away here -- how all these individuals' stories unfold, how they all connect, and what has happened to them. What I will say is: 

This has already been called one of the best books of the year. I often approach these lauded books with a dose of skepticism. ;)  But this one fully deserves that praise. It brings this complicated period of Irish history vividly to life and makes it understandable (more understandable, at least) and fascinating (and jaw-dropping), in a way that many past books about these issues have not. I could not put it down, and I will be thinking about it for a long, long time.

If you have ever been interested in learning more about "the Troubles," and how they still reverberate in Ireland today, this is an absolute, essential must-read.

Five (5) stars on Goodreads.

This was book #22 that I have read in 2019 to date, bringing me to 92% of my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 24 books.  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 11 (!!) books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :)