Say Nothing : A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

The Say Nothing book sets out to understand how Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, came to be abducted from her Belfast home in front of her children in 1972 and murdered by the IRA. The IRA suspected her of being an informer, a claim her family strongly rejects. In Say Nothing Patrick Radden Keefe sets her family's story beside the lives of IRA members Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes, the British state, the Boston College oral history tapes and the search for the Disappeared. Gerry Adams, who has consistently denied IRA membership, also features. The Irish Times review describes it as suited to readers of narrative journalism and to anyone drawn to the Troubles who can live with open questions instead of neat conclusions.

The Say Nothing true story is told by a staff writer for The New Yorker whose earlier books are The Snakehead and Chatter. Keefe grew up in Dorchester, Boston, and has said his interest began when he read the 2013 New York Times obituary of Dolours Price.

The Irish Times review argues that in Say Nothing Northern Ireland's conflict appears without tidy sides, in many shades of moral complexity, leaving readers uncertain where they stand. Say Nothing won the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, and judge Ted Hodgkinson described it as a haunting portrait of the Troubles that felt timely.

A common question is when was Say Nothing published, and the answer is 2018, with this William Collins paperback following on 22 August 2019. In this edition the Say Nothing book pages run to 528. In 2024 it was adapted into a nine part Disney+ television series.

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