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Spoilers below.
On the cover of Patrick Radden Keefe’s historical nonfiction bestseller Say Nothing, Dolours Price wears a turtleneck covering her mouth, pulled all the way up to her eyes. Taken by Stefano Archetti in the 1970s for the Italian magazine L’Europeo, it’s a visual reminder of the code of silence practiced by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland throughout the 20th century. It is no wonder that the book’s TV adaptation has recreated the striking image of the red-haired Dolours (Lola Petticrew) sporting a similar black sweater, but with her finger raised to her covered mouth to emphasize this established rule.
Telling this true story of murder and memory is the remarkable new FX limited series, Say Nothing. Now streaming all nine episodes on Hulu, it follows Dolours and her sister Marian (Hazel Doupe) across four decades, from idealistic teenagers participating in peaceful protests to fiery young women branded as “The Sisters of Terror” by the British media to exhausted middle-aged women looking back with (some) regret. As two defining faces of The Troubles in the tumultuous 1970s, the duo symbolize radical politics, including violent campaigns waged in public and under the blanket of secrecy. The goal? To win independence from British rule and reunite Ireland—no matter how bloody the battle. The root of the conflict goes back centuries, but in the late ‘60s, violence was on the rise between Catholic nationalists (republicans) and Protestant unionists (loyalists) in Northern Ireland.
The opening sequence of Say Nothing focuses on the same harrowing events as Keefe’s book, following widowed mother-of-10 Jean McConville (Judith Roddy) being escorted by the IRA from her Belfast flat at gunpoint before she is never seen again. The year is 1972, and around the same time, the Price sisters are becoming part of an IRA unit known as the “Unknowns,” who, among other things, were tasked with transporting suspected informants across the border—which included close friends. “The disappearance of Jean McConville was eventually recognized as one of the worst atrocities that occurred during the long conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles,” wrote Keefe. Telling the interconnected story and the sprawling consequences through Jean, Dolours, and their families highlights the psychological impact of the code of silence. “The show is about both the romance of radical politics and also the cost of those politics,” said showrunner Joshua Zetumer at a recent panel.
Speaking out was tantamount to a death sentence, with Keefe taking the title from Seamus Heaney’s 1975 poem, “Whatever You Say Nothing.” However, in the aftermath of the successful peace talks, Dolours sat down between 2001 and 2006 with journalist Ed Moloney as part of a Boston College academic oral history called The Belfast Project. These interviews shape the framing of Say Nothing on screen, allowing older Dolours (Maxine Peake) to reflect on her past and act as the overarching voice of the series.
Keefe first covered the entwining stories of McConville’s murder and Dolours Price’s history within the IRA in 2015 for The New Yorker. The TV version doesn’t take any shortcuts. “We’ve spent as much time making this series as I spent writing the book, from beginning to end,” Keefe told Vanity Fair. But it can’t cover everything either. For further insight, you can watch Dolours’ 2010 videotaped follow-up conversation with Moloney in the 2018 documentary I, Dolours.
Below, get to know the real Marian and Dolours Price.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
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They grew up in a family of staunch Irish republicans.
Dolours and Marian grew up hearing stories of the bloody Irish republican struggle and would follow in their father’s footsteps into fighting for “the Cause.” First, the adolescent siblings tried peaceful resistance to the treatment of Catholics by participating in a student march with the People’s Democracy movement on New Year’s Day, 1969. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, the group swore not to fight back even if they were physically attacked, following through with this approach even after they were ambushed at Burntollet Bridge by approximately 300 loyalists (including 100 off-duty police officers). “I looked into the eyes of these people who were beating us, and they were glazed over with some kind of hate, and I thought to myself, “No, that person is never going to want to walk alongside of me,” recalled Dolours in her interview with Moloney.
Coming from a family with deep-rooted republican ties didn’t mean the sisters got preferential treatment or whichever role they wanted in the IRA. Instead, the siblings were offered to join the female auxiliary wing of the IRA (called Cumann na mBan), which they immediately rejected because they didn’t want to be relegated to “rolling bandages.” It was the era of Women’s Liberation, which even trickled down into how the IRA widened its recruitment pool beyond willing men, with 20-year-old Dolours being one of the first women to get the full membership. There was also a practical reason for allowing women to pick up weapons, as a lot of the men were being arrested or interned in large numbers.
Dolours Price (left) and her sister Marian (right), at a civil rights demonstration outside Belfast.
As a fighter, Dolours insisted she would not be assigned any honey trap scenarios, but the Price sisters’ femininity did aid travels across the border. The third episode opens with a soldier at a checkpoint distracted by Dolours’ legs as she wears a miniskirt, but in reality, this happened to Marian.
Marian followed in her sister’s footsteps, first as a courier and then picking up arms. In episode 2, we see them taking part in bank robberies dressed as nuns and wearing wigs to aid the escape of a prisoner about to undergo surgery, which actually happened. “Perhaps their ability to play the part of demure Catholic schoolgirls whenever they were confronted was enough to divert suspicion,” writes Keefe. No matter what the reason, it meant they were earning attention from IRA higher-ups like Gerry Adams (Josh Finan). The politically gifted Gerry rises up the ranks at a young age and is shown pulling the strings behind every major decision. Whereas Gerry took a behind-the-scenes role, Brendan Hughes (Anthony Boyle) was a fearsome leader who never shied away from combat. Brendan also took part in the Belfast Project. (Each episode ends with a disclaimer: “Gerry Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA or participating in any IRA-related violence”).
Lola Petticrew as Dolours Price in Say Nothing.
They bombed London and then went on hunger strike in prison.
In 1973, Dolours led a team of nine (including Marian) to London, where they planned on detonating car bombs at symbolic locations like the Old Bailey Courthouse. “I was convinced that a short, sharp shock, an incursion into the heart of the empire, would be more effective than twenty car bombs in any part of the north of Ireland,” said Dolours in a 2012 interview. Over 200 people were injured in the blasts, and the bombers were immediately arrested at Heathrow Airport (the IRA is still considered a proscribed terrorist organization in the U.K.) The sisters were found guilty and were sent to all-male Brixton Prison to serve 20 years. They were the only female inmates, and the sisters had already stopped eating when they arrived at Brixton.
Dolours Price’s mug shot.
The first Irish republican to die on hunger strike was Thomas Ashe in 1917. The act of political resistance was used throughout the 20th century—including in the early ’80s, which Steve McQueen’s Hunger depicts. Irish prisoner Terence MacSwiney died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison half a century before the Prices arrived. The sisters refused to eat until they were sent back to Northern Ireland to serve their term as political prisoners. Someone even stole “The Guitar Player,” a Vermeer painting from Kenwood House, as a ransom for the Prices’ freedom. It was returned after Dolours, a former art student, made a public plea.
To avoid repeating history—and the bad press surrounding MacSwiney’s death—a decision was made to force-feed Marian and Dolours. It had been two and a half weeks since the duo had eaten, but they still made a further pact to continue together. Say Nothing’s standout sixth episode focuses entirely on the imprisonment of the Price sisters, and it is as brilliant as it is harrowing.
Ultimately, after just over 200 days, the British government met their demands, and the sisters were transferred to Armagh, Northern Ireland—though it was more drawn out than the series depicts. Marian was freed first in 1980 due to ill health, with Dolours spending an additional year behind bars before her release was granted. “It was like I’d been separated from my Siamese twin,” recalled Dolours about her time serving without Marian.
Hazel Doupe as Marian Price and Lola Petticrew as Dolours.
Dolours married a Hollywood actor who had an unusual connection to Gerry Adams.
When the “Belfast Ten” were first arrested, Keefe notes in his book that Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave offered to pay bail and offered them a place to stay—though they were all remanded in court. But the celebrity connections go deeper. The night before the operation, Dolours and Marian went to see a play called The Freedom of the City starring a young actor from Belfast called Stephen Rea.
Dolorous had already met Stephen in the ‘60s. When their paths crossed after her release in 1980, they hit it off and married three years later. Rea starred in the IRA movie The Crying Game in 1990 and played Santiago in the 1994 Interview with the Vampire. Recent credits include V for Vendetta, The Honorable Woman, and The English.
It doesn’t make the series, but one unusual connection between Rea and Gerry Adams arose when Margaret Thatcher’s government banned Gerry Adams’s voice from the U.K. airwaves between 1988 and 1994 when Adams was the leader of the political party Sinn Féin. Actors were hired to dub the general content of Adams’s message, though viewers could still see his face. Rea was one of eight men who took this voiceover job. The couple had two children and divorced in 2003, with Rea talking candidly about their marriage and Dolours’s alcoholism in 2021.
Michael Colgan as older Gerry Adams.
The ghosts of the Disappeared haunted Dolours.
After they were released from prison, Dolours and Marian took different paths, but they were both vocal critics of the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to the 30-year cycle of violence known as the Troubles in 1998. It was viewed as a betrayal that undermined all their efforts by negotiating a deal that didn’t end with a united Ireland—not to mention Adams disavowed any involvement. Dolours publicly identified Adams as her commanding officer, which he denied in no uncertain terms.
Dolours continued to speak out to the press. However, the Belfast Project was meant to be anonymous, with the tapes not coming out until after the participant died. Dolours admitted in the 2010 interview that she was haunted by the Disappeared, those who were abducted, killed, and secretly buried during the conflict, telling Moloney she considered these secretive actions to be a “war crime.” While Dolours never explicitly says who shot Jean McConville, she was crystal clear that Gerry was the one who ordered this method of execution. There is zero evidence that McConville was an informer.
Maxine Peake as older Dolours Price in Say Nothing.
The Say Nothing finale reveals that Dolours and Marian drove suspected informant Jean to the assassination squad and had to return when none of them would kill the mother of 10 (“They couldn’t bring themselves to execute her. Probably because she was a woman,” said Dolours). Marian is shown to be the one who pulls the trigger—mirroring a scene in the first episode where she fires her weapon first at a police officer. The real Marian has denied not only this conjecture but “any involvement in the murder of Jean McConville.”
Adams said he would help the McConville family locate their mother’s remains so they could give her a proper burial, but it was actually a member of the public who made the grim discovery while walking their dog in 2003. A decade later, Dolours died at the age of 62 after ingesting a fatal combination of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and sedatives, but suicide was ruled out as the official cause of death. Marian, who was back in prison for her involvement in providing materials used in another attack, was given special leave to attend the wake—and her sentence was later suspended. (Gerry Adams declined to be interviewed by Keefe, and Marian Price could not talk to journalists as part of her release agreement.)
Reading Dolours’s obituary in The New York Times prompted Keefe to begin researching these overlapping stories. A decade after her death, Say Nothing creator Zetumer pinpoints how polarization continues to be a global issue: “Whether you believe in what the IRA is doing, or you think it’s abhorrent, we just felt this question of the efficacy of violence—is it worth it, going down that path?—was only more relevant now in a world where political violence really feels like it’s starting to rear its head.”
Emma Fraser is a freelance culture writer with a focus on TV, movies, and costume design. You can find her talking about all of these things on Twitter.