If you’re at a loss as to what to do with nine consecutive hours of your life, I have a not-necessarily-uplifting but ultimately edifying suggestion: watch Say Nothing, the new FX adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s bestselling 2018 account of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its various members’ activities during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The series, which follows real-life Irish sisters Dolours and Marian Price throughout their early peace activism, subsequent joining of the IRA, alleged criminal activity, imprisonment, hunger strikes, and later life, shouldn’t necessarily be mistaken for a documentary. Yes, the Price sisters’ exploits were real, as was their longtime friendship with Brendan Hughes (an IRA member nicknamed “The Dark”) and their even more complex bond with accused IRA leader-turned-Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams. Keefe’s book suggests that, of course, some liberties were taken in the making of the show; it is TV, after all. Below, find a guide to what’s true, what’s not, and what’s somewhere in between when it comes to the real-life events that inspired Say Nothing.
Was Gerry Adams really involved with Jean McConville’s disappearance?
Josh Finan as Gerry Adams in Say NothingPhoto: Rob Youngston/FX