Sometimes it can be shocking just how recent some major historical upheavals are. The Troubles in Northern Ireland may be the subject of nostalgic feel-good comedy series Derry Girls, but it’s a deeply tragic, complicated, long-running conflict that was measured in decades, not years. But the end of the conflict, the Good Friday Agreement, was only signed in 1998, meaning it’s only really a generation away — far too vast and recent for culture to come to terms with everything that happened.
But one series now streaming on Hulu attempts to tell the story of the Troubles by focusing on one of its most fascinating figures: Dolours Price. The activist and member of the IRA, the Provision Irish Republican Army, Price gets the spotlight in Say Nothing, which goes far beyond even the activism that made her famous — we see how she changed the world even after her passing.
Say Nothing, based on the book of the same name by Patrick Radden Keefe, doesn’t attempt to tell the entire story of the complex relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom. Instead, it dives into the third act of the Troubles as the Provisional Irish Republican Army began paramilitary action in the late 1960s. Dolours Price (Lola Petticrew,) the daughter of two former IRA officers, is determined to find another path to independence: non-violent protest. But when a march turns violent, she becomes embroiled in the underbelly of the IRA, officially joining with her sister Marian.
We learn all of this through narration from a flash-forward Dolours (Maxine Peake), describing her experiences to an offscreen interviewer. “You were taught that you were fighting in the name of the people. That the whole community was behind you... and that everything you do together is for the greater good of a free and united Ireland,” she says at the end of Episode 1. “And I think people should know... that it's all lies.”
With that twist looming over the entire series, we watch as a young Dolours begins missions as the first official female member of the IRA, as previous female members were relegated to a women’s corps. Under the careful watch of Gerry Adams (Josh Finan), she participates in “fundraising,” aka robbing banks, and covert operations like liberating an imprisoned comrade from a hospital with her sister while wearing long gray wigs.
As we watch the British police scramble to identify this mysterious woman, we learn about Gerry Adams’ new initiative: the Unknowns, an ultra-secret brigade of operatives. Dolours begins to serve as a driver, ferrying people into Ireland and driving cars full of explosives into Northern Ireland. It’s then she comes up with her biggest idea: to bring the fight to the mainland. With her sister, she plans to plant four car bombs in London and succeeds, injuring hundreds. The girls are held in a British men’s prison, where they find another way to fight with a 200-day hunger strike, during which they were force-fed.
Dolours went on to have a colorful life after being released from prison, meeting and marrying actor Stephen Rea and struggling with substance abuse issues, but in the last years of her life we learn why she decided to tell her entire story: some of the people she drove to Ireland never came back — they were part of the Disappeared, the group of people who were abducted and murdered by the IRA over the years. Much of the final episodes are dedicated to the incalculable losses suffered by these families, and Dolours’ desire to set things right, speaking in interviews that wouldn’t be released until she passed away.
Dolours is still controversial — at the end of every episode, it’s stated Gerry Adams has always denied any involvement with the IRA — but this series portrays her with a steady hand. She’s not a good person, she’s a person who felt strongly about her cause, even if she regretted it later in life.
It may seem strange to call Say Nothing a thriller, since it’s based on true events, but the way Dolours’ story twists and turns, reshaping her legacy even after the end of her life, keeps you not guessing about what’s coming next, but second-guessing your own opinion about what you’re being shown. That’s what makes recent history so fascinating: as more hidden stories are uncovered, everything can change.
