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8.32k reviews for:
Nieko nesakyk: Kruvini įvykiai ir susitaikymo paieškos Šiaurės Airijoje
Patrick Radden Keefe
4.49 AVERAGE
8.32k reviews for:
Nieko nesakyk: Kruvini įvykiai ir susitaikymo paieškos Šiaurės Airijoje
Patrick Radden Keefe
4.49 AVERAGE
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Excellent oral narrative, but I wish there was a foreword to give the cultural and historic background. Like they're fighting for a united Ireland, but I have no idea why Ireland is split in the first place, much less why they feel so passionate about reunification.
An outstanding piece of journalism. I was born after the worst of the Troubles and - perhaps unsurprisingly - the UK curriculum is very light on historical details about our relationship with Ireland. I found this book informative but remarkably even-handed. There are no winners or losers, no right and wrong. Radden Keefe navigates sympathetically through a very complex and emotionally fraught subject, holding events and people up to the light to examine them, without getting overly bogged down in the morality of what they have - or, perhaps, haven't - done. This is non-fiction that reads like fiction.
Fantastic. I knew what I thought was a good deal about "The Troubles" in Ireland/NI going in, but this was an intense "time and place" experience. EXCELLENT narration. Amazing real life stories...
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In Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe takes on the formidable task of recounting part of the history of the Troubles through the lens of the Provisional IRA in Belfast. The book centers on key figures, including sisters Dolours and Marian Price, Brendan Hughes, and Gerry Adams, while also introducing a wide cast of former members of the IRA. Keefe doesn’t shy away from exposing the violence and complicity of the British Army and government during this period. He also details the Belfast Project--an oral history project at Boston College in which former paramilitaries recounted their roles in the conflict, with devastating consequences.
Keefe traces the tragedies of Northern Ireland from the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969 through the escalation of the 1970s, the IRA’s bombing campaigns in London, the Thatcher years, and the hunger strikes of the 1980s, all the way to the rise of Sinn Féin and the peace process. To be clear, this is not an exhaustive account of the Troubles, nor does it claim to be. While I would have liked more exploration of loyalist paramilitaries, Keefe acknowledges this lies outside the scope of the book.
What makes Say Nothing so compelling is Keefe’s exploration of collective memory and amnesia, of trauma, and of the enduring question of whether the ends ever justified the means. What was all the bloodshed for in the end? Was a peace process inevitable? How do individuals reckon with both the violence they endured and the violence they inflicted? Why are some able to move forward, while others remain captive to the trauma of the Troubles? And ultimately, who bears responsibility?
I marked this down from five stars to 4.75 for two main reasons:
- The sheer number of dates and names sometimes made the narrative difficult to follow. I also wished Keefe had provided the ages of the main characters, which would have been more useful than just the year.
- While the story opens with the harrowing account of Jean McConville--a widowed mother of ten who was “disappeared” by the IRA in 1972--her story fades for much of the book. Though it resurfaces by the end in a truly jaw-dropping way, I was left wondering in the middle sections whether Keefe had abandoned that thread.
Overall, Say Nothing is a masterfully researched and brilliantly written work of narrative nonfiction. I truly couldn’t put it down.
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