I know we have been a bit remiss in not covering Say Nothing yet, but I have only watched the first two episodes and was avoiding writing about it until I saw them all.
But from what I have seen so far, I think it was excellent. Terrific acting, no dodgy accents, brilliant sets – the CGI Divis Flats were just as bleak and oppressive as I remember them.
I was chatting with an ex-IRA man over the weekend who was a personal friend of Brendan Hughes, and he had nothing but praise for the show. He thought Anthony Boyle, the actor who played Brendan Hughes, got him down to a t. Even Ruth Dudley Edwards liked it. When you can please both Ruth Dudley Edwards and an ex-IRA man, that is praise indeed for the producers.
But as always, when dealing with real people, there will always be dissenting voices. Chief amongst these is Marian Price, one of the show’s main characters. Understandingly unset at getting door-stepped by Sunday Life, the Irish News reports that she is now suing Disney for defamation.
The film depicts Marian taking a handgun from her sister who is seemingly unable to fire the fatal shot. Marian is then seen to let off a shot before the widowed mother-of-ten falls into the grave. In pre-action correspondence, a solicitor acting for Marian Price, Peter Corrigan, of Phoenix Law, said his client intends to sue for defamation.
You do wonder why the producers did not take the legally safe option and have Pat McClure or Delores Price fire the fatal shot. Both are now dead and as we know, you can’t libel the dead.
Legal actions are long and costly. While Disney can’t prove that Marian Price fired the fatal shot or was even there at the time, they have deep pockets and could string this out for a while. The other issue with court proceedings is that many things can come up that the parties might otherwise wish to stay hidden.
The events of over 50 years ago are very much still alive.
In related news, a grave has been exhumed in the search for Joe Lynskey. Joe Lynskey is featured in the TV Show. The former monk from Belfast who later joined the IRA, was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the in 1972. From The Cinemaholic:
Joseph “Joe” Lynskey was a West Belfast native who lived with his parents and a sister in Beechmount’s Cavendish Street. As sources suggest, he was a part of the Original IRA and campaigned with them between 1958 and 1962, particularly in Operation Harvest, which originated in 1956. Afterward, he left the organization to become a monk of the Cistercian Order briefly. However, it wasn’t long before Lynskey left the order and returned to the Irish reunification efforts. Allegedly, in 1971, he was one of the founding members of the Provisional IRA in Belfast. Lynskey went missing in August 1972, a time when the Northern Ireland conflict was continuing with particularly significant violence. Initially, when his family started looking for him, they were told he was in America.
Allison Morris in the BelTel has a good article on the background of the Lynskey killing. From the article:
When he fell for a woman, the wife of another IRA member, he became completely infatuated with her.
His obsession was such he convinced himself that it was her husband who stood in the way of their happy-ever-after and sent another IRA member to shoot him, telling the gunman the attack was sanctioned by the leadership.
The shooting happened at a time when tensions between the Provisional movement and the Official IRA were at a height.
Originally it was thought this was an attack by the OIRA, and a unit were mobilised to carry out a bloody retaliation.
This was only called off when the truth about what happened came to light.
Dolours Price contacted me shortly afterwards to say she wanted to speak about Mr Lynskey. During an interview in her Malahide home she cried, saying she had driven him to Monaghan but that she had begged him to let her take him to the port so he could escape his inevitable fate.
He refused, saying that would only put her in danger for disobeying an order.
A while after the story was published, I was contacted by one of the IRA men who held Mr Lynskey at a house in rural Co Monaghan.
He said Mr Lynskey never attempted to run, even though he could have, and that he had asked for just one thing: a set of rosary beads.
It should also be noted that the son of Jean McConville, Michael McConville has said that the portrayal of his mother’s murder and secret burial by the IRA in a new Disney drama is “horrendous” and “cruel”.
- “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
– William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
As usual, be careful with comments concerning people who are still alive.
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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