A Book Review
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, begins with two detectives from Northern Ireland descending into high security vaults of a special collection at the Boston College library.
Next and interspersed over the course of the book is the 1974 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, an impoverished single mother of ten children, who was the widow of a Catholic husband, but who had grown up Protestant herself. She was forced out of her Protestant neighborhood by those who never forgave her for marrying a Catholic. But it was in Catholic West Belfast that she was spirited from her apartment by the Provisional IRA. Was she a spy against the IRA? It was assumed to be the case in the suspicious neighborhood she grew up in, but without providing a definitive spoiler, I’ll just say it was quite possibly a huge error that traces back to decisions by the founder of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams.
And then we meet “Arthur’s Daughters,” Delours and Marian Price, who became rock star IRA terrorists in the 1970s and who captivated the world during a hunger strike after being captured in London in March 1973, following a series of explosions they helped to light off throughout the city. Their fame changed the narrative from them being “Arthur’s daughters” to him being the father of “The Price Sisters.”
