Reckoning With Silence: Say Nothing and The Troubles on Screen

By Leah Dillon

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe and its screen adaption begin with Jean McConville – a widowed mother of ten – alone in the bath. It’s a strikingly vulnerable image: a tired mother stealing a moment alone.

That sense of the ordinary is suddenly disrupted by the arrival of masked gunmen. They tell Jean to put on her coat, reassuring her children, she’ll be right back. Rumoured to be an informant, although no evidence has ever been found that she was, she is bundled into a van and never seen alive again.

First published in 2018, Keefe’s book follows the real lives at the heart of the Northern Irish Conflict. The recent screen adaption by Joshua Zetumer takes a more emotionally driven approach – blending dramatisation with historical accuracy to spotlight the personal cost of violence, betrayal and silence. It must be said though, that this approach is far from new. The book builds upon a solid foundation laid by Irish journalists and writers like Tim Pat Coogan and Martin Dillon, whose work long predated Keefe’s.

Both book and series deftly weave McConville’s story with those of Dolours Price, who bombed the Old Bailey in her teens; Gerry Adams, who denies his IRA past while helping broker peace; and Brendan Hughes – aka The Dark – the D-Company commander who broke the code of silence after the conflict. Each represents a different thread of a shared and tangled history.

Understanding the origin of the violence is crucial. The Troubles didn’t erupt out of nowhere. The predominantly working-class Catholic population in Northern Ireland was systematically denied fair access to housing and jobs, and subject to gerrymandering. Say Nothing, to its credit, opens with a monologue that lays this out – maybe not the most masterful delivery, but a necessary one.

One of the show’s most powerful choices was casting actors who actually grew up in Belfast. The cultural authenticity builds on the tone the book tries to establish. Leads Lola Petticrew (who plays Dolours Price) and Anthony Boyle (as Brendan Hughes) bring a lived-in familiarity to their roles – their platonic chemistry is essential to the show’s portrayal of local humour, and the tight-knit communities that endured the conflict.

Boyle’s Jack-the-lad charm definitely adds to the appeal – though audiences may be in for a shock if they expect all Irish men to be that slick. Still, it’s not just the accents (though I maintain those are crucial for any Irish production hoping to land well here). It’s the everyday mundanities woven into the chaos – people still went to the pub, still buried their dead, still found moments of normality between bomb scares and army checkpoints.

If the book chronicled silence, the series embodies it. The adaption gives a human face the long reaching trauma after disarmament. The same shoulder-shrugging blitheness used to describe bombings and raids still echoes in many communities. But that authenticity lands more convincingly when spoken by a majority Irish-born cast, rather than filtered through the authority given to an American author who never lived through the conflict.

Critics like Lucy Mangan of The Guardian have noted that the series “feels overly sympathetic to its main characters – the sisters, Hughes and Adams.” [1] And while that perspective is valid, it also highlights the challenges of fully capturing the cultural complexities of the Troubles from an outside vantage. For those unfamiliar with the nuances of Northern Irish society, it can be difficult to grasp the layered relationships, loyalties, and lived experiences that shaped these individuals. As Boyle put in an interview, “I don’t think we should define what ‘this’ is. This is a messy checkered history”. [2]. It’s a reminder that any attempt to portray the Troubles – whether in print or on screen – must acknowledge the complexity, contradiction, and emotional weight that still lingers. There are no clean narratives here, and perhaps there never will be.

The culture of silence remains. It’s in the way people dodge certain questions, in the tension that still clings to some neighbourhoods. The series doesn’t look away from this. It leans in.

And its prompting new conversations – especially around mental health and social housing, both underfunded legacies of the conflict. Petticrew, in particular, has been vocal about the need for investment.

It’s easy to romanticise resistance, to package trauma into tidy story arcs. But Say Nothing doesn’t do that. It challenges us to look again – not just at the history books, but at our streets, our neighbours, and the quiet weight we carry. For Belfast, it’s more than just good story telling. It’s a reckoning.

Sources

[1] Managan, L (2024). Say Nothing Review – a compelling but fatally flawed account of the Troubles. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/nov/14/say-nothing-review-a-compelling-but-fatally-flawed-account-of-the-troubles

[2] McHenry, J. (2024). The Pluck of the Irish: A Belfast lad goes home. Vulture. Available at: https://www.vulture.com/article/anthony-boyle-brendan-hughes-say-nothing-interview.html#:~:text=Boyle%20has%20come%20home%20in,folk%20hero%20in%20Northern%20Ireland.