Helen Archer | On 24, Dec 2024

A pacy, glossy treatment of Irish republican paramilitaries was probably not on anyone’s bingo card as a late contender for best TV series of 2024, but it’s been a strange year. The IRA is here given the ‘Hollywood treatment’, a sometimes uncomfortable blend of savage reality, dark humour, and a certain glamour. But if you can get over the initial tonal whiplash, it is both immensely entertaining and extremely moving.

The nine-episode series roots itself in the life of Dolours Price, who, along with her sister, Marian, became a renowned IRA volunteer after joining in 1971. It is based on the book of the same name, by Patrick Madden Keefe, which itself takes much from the Belfast Project – an oral history of former paramilitaries –  and the work of Ed Moloney, including the 2010 book Voices from the Grave and his 2018 documentary I, Dolours, which features interviews with Price, and hits many of the same beats as the Disney+ series.

It starts with one of the most enduring and traumatic kidnappings and murders of the Troubles, as widow Jean McConville is taken from her flat, and from her 10 children, by an IRA gang – and it is this, along with others now known as ‘the Disappeared’, that the series hooks on. Cutting to scenes of Dolours’ childhood – her upbringing in a staunchly republican family, her initial rejection of their insistence on an armed struggle as opposed to peaceful protest, and her radicalisation after experiencing first-hand the violence of both Unionists and the British state – it swiftly follows Dolours and Marian joining the IRA under Gerry Adams (who, it is noted at the end of each and every episode, denies any involvement with the IRA). Refusing to do the ‘women’s work’ of cleaning dishes (or bullets), the sisters insist on an active role within the organisation. We follow their missions, from becoming drivers for secret operations, transporting weapons, explosives and people across the border, to bank robberies, bombings and their subsequent imprisonment and hunger strike. 

While not much is seen of the IRA’s opposing side, other than an early scene of Unionists violently attacking peaceful protesters, the brutality of the British state is represented – albeit briefly – by Rory Kinnear as Frank Kitson, a terrifyingly cold colonel who oversaw the recruitment of informants. In a world where the worst thing you could be was a “tout”, this led to the murder of many of the Disappeared – what Kitson describes in the series as a “win-win” situation. Tellingly, it is the spectre of Joe Lynskey which haunts Dolours in her latter years, ‘disappeared’ not for being a informant, but for an ill-advised attack on a fellow IRA volunteer. 
 
The performances are terrific all round, but specific mention must go to the star-quality charisma of Lola Petticrew, who shines as the young Dolores, as does Anthony Boyle, who plays the the 1970s Brendan Hughes, the Officer Commanding of the Belfast Brigade. In the latter part of the series, they are replaced by Maxine Peake and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as the older versions of themselves, as they wrestle with their pasts and their rift with Gerry Adams – who ultimately abandoned the armed struggle for a career as a politician, with all the compromises that entailed; essentially, in his old comrades’ eyes, turning his back on them, deeming their early work meaningless and the trauma of those who were ‘disappeared’ all for nothing.

There are some glaring omissions, perhaps for the sake of sensitivity. But there are, too, some surprising additions – including the apparent revelation of the identity of Jean McConville’s shooter – an unevidenced and contested presumption by the Keefe, which begs some ethical questions. As a bingeable, thought-provoking box set, Say Nothing is outstanding. For the whole story, though, further reading is required.

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