Say Nothing . . . Fuck It . . . Say Everything

Muiris Ó Súilleabháin ✍ "Life can only be understood backwards, but yet it must be lived forward." - Kierkegaard.

A hat tip to TPQs Henry Joy for reminding me of the importance of Kierkegaard’s paradox on the meaning of life.

I have often grappled with my own meagre contribution to the struggle, which thankfully did not include gaol or active service. It did, nevertheless, require me to put my life and liberty on the line, daily, for most of twenty years, for what I thought was an honourable cause: the establishment of a 32-county socialist republic.

When it became apparent to me that the Republic had been jettisoned, superseded by the imperative to make Stormont work, I decided that my race was run and quietly got on with living my life.

Leaving the movement is not an easy thing: “friendships” end overnight, life takes on a whole new meaning and structure (or lack thereof), and it was a battle. I resolved that to cocoon myself away from all things republican and politics was the best way to keep the black dog, that had savaged so many of my former comrades, at bay.

I am eternally grateful that this self-isolation was readily reciprocated by many of those who remained loyal to the “project”. The rumours, the lies and the threats all expediated the transition into a much happier and much more balanced life, one that I have been enjoying since.

It was during this period of self-imposed exile that the hullabaloo surrounding the Boston College History Project emerged. I saw the graffiti on the Falls Road, which was orchestrated by a defunct organisation and heard that Mackers was being labelled a tout, once again, by people who have subsequently been exposed as being actual British agents.

I was too busy studying, travelling the world and making up for the lost years, so the kerfuffle somewhat passed me by. And, to be honest, I didn’t really care. My education had afforded me a level of critical thinking and self-reflection that was absent in my youth. I had known Mackers from my earlier years and while we seldom agreed on political direction, for him right was right and wrong was wrong. I warmly remember the day I drove him from a Sinn Fein Office in the city to a house in Springhill. He was a happy man, having received his first payment for an article he had written for the Sunday Tribune. Right being right, Mackers, who was skint, was giving the money to a prisoner’s wife to buy a new TV.

It was through this lens that I sat down a few weeks ago with my partner and watched Say Nothing. I hadn’t read the book, and I have since read up on the Boston College saga.

I knew many of the key protagonists, and thought Brendan was magnificently portrayed by Belfast native Anthony Boyle. While a questionable amount of artistic license was used by Disney, the key messages were crystal clear.

The series evoked a considerable emotional response from me and brought me back to a time that I thought I had securely compartmentalised in lieu of forgetting someday. In equal measure, I was nauseous, embarrassed, angry and happy, but overall, the series left with me a feeling of “fuck it”.

My partner, who has no knowledge of the conflict or the subject matter, found it disconcerting that I had ever been involved with a liberation struggle that could so easily commit war crimes, such egregious human rights violations and treat its own members in such a venal way.

The “fuck it” moment (a la The Deer Hunter 1978) reached its crescendo when we watched the hapless Joe Lynskey walk to his death. It was after this episode that I stopped trying to explain, make sense of, or fathom what was unfolding on my TV screen.

In the hierarchy of victimology that has been infused into dealing with the past and our conflict, surely there is no group of people who transcend the suffering inflicted needlessly as the families of the disappeared. By all contemporary definitions what happened to these poor souls was a war crime and should be viewed as such by all. The lies, the subterfuge and the horrors that were inflicted upon these families should never be forgotten. The Boston College project brought further disclosure to some of the families, and highlighted that the IRA had lied about Joe Lynskey, to his family, and to the world, for 10 whole years after the discovery of the first of the disappeared. For this alone, the project, in my view, has confirmed its worth.

But the importance of Say Nothing and ergo the Boston College project goes beyond the exposure of these human rights abuses. The series laid bare, in a horrendous way, the utter futility of the war since the early 80s and how loyal volunteers were cast aside with turpitude by those who displayed an unnerving sociopathy and craving for power. It told the story of Brendan and Dolours, it was their truth as they saw it, at that time. In many ways their truths, have more legitimacy than Before the Dawn or Playing My Part by the two Gerrys who also featured in the series. Neither Brendan nor Dolours sanitised their truth or their roles in a dirty war for a book deal, a retrospective reach around or an opportunity to become reputable.

By allowing republicans from that era to tell their truths, in a warts and all exposé both Say Nothing and the Boston College project have an authenticity and validity that many of the emerging oral history projects vis a vis peace monies will not be able to replicate.

Some of these fledgling oral history projects, controlled by the “community sector” (Absolute Power Act 2) appear to nothing more than an attempt to control the narrative and decontaminate the actions of a rapacious leadership, whose sole desire appears to be the re-writing of history.

The purpose of labelling such a hugely important historical body of work as the “tout tapes” had little to do with the truth and justice.

Schivelbusch's seminal work on the culture of defeat contends that the vanquished, more often than not, reinvent themselves, try to control the collective memory and try to build legend and myth. Say Nothing and the Boston College project effectively challenged an attempt to control the truth and prevent families from getting justice.

The vulgarity and offensiveness of the denial of IRA membership and activity at the end of each episode of Say Nothing should act as a wake-up call to all those who value the truth and strive for justice in post conflict Ireland.

It is easy to sleep on another man's wound.

⏩Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fás.