A review by laynemandros
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

My second five star read of 2024 and this is one you’re not gonna want to miss. I feel like this is the kind of book I want to give to people when they say they don’t read nonfiction because this didn’t ~feel~ like nonfic. I listening on audio, so that may have contributed, but this really felt like an oral history and I think that was intentional. 

“Say Nothing” covers The Troubles in Northern Ireland, a time period between the late 60s and 1998, that concluded with The Good Friday Agreement. I was absolutely fascinated listening to history of Irish resistance against British occupation and the rise (and maybe fall, tbd sounds like they’re still kinda hanging on) of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). 

There’s truly so much for me to say regarding this book but two points I really want to touch on are the Price sisters and the parallels between Northern Ireland and Palestine. 

There’s a reason we’re seeing folks like Hozier and Nicola Coughlan publicly speaking for Palestine. They understand the history of Ireland and have likely seen the impacts in their lifetime because 1998 was not so long ago! 

Secondly, I was completely enthralled while listening to the story of Marian and Dolores Price. The most salient part of their story was when they were imprisoned in 1973 for their role in a terrorist attack called Old Bailey Bombing. While they were jailed the sisters embarked on a 208 day hunger strike which lasted that long because jail officials force fed the women to keep them alive. The sheer grit and determination of this act is wholly unfathomable to me and I was blown away listening to this section of the book. 

Again, there is much more to say and I’ll likely do a review in a longer format, but my main takeaway is read this one! You won’t regret it!