Who Killed Jean McConville?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: Who Killed Jean McConville?
Date: February 25, 2019
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Patrick Radden Keefe (Staff Writer, Author of Say Nothing)

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Overview

This episode delves into the political and personal mysteries surrounding the 1972 disappearance and murder of Jean McConville during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. David Remnick interviews Patrick Radden Keefe, staff writer for The New Yorker and author of Say Nothing, a book that investigates the killing, the trauma it left behind, and the ongoing shadow of the IRA and its leadership, especially Gerry Adams, decades after the official end of the conflict.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Historical Backdrop of The Troubles

• Belfast became synonymous with violence, including bombings, murders, and guerrilla warfare, for nearly 40 years.
  • [01:35] David Remnick: “For nearly 40 years, the city of Belfast was synonymous with bombings, murders and guerrilla warfare.”
• The political process officially ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, but the legacy and tensions persist.
  • [01:48] “The conflict in Northern Ireland between the British government and the IRA … ended in 1998. Officially, that is. But the Troubles continued to bubble up in unexpected places.”

The Mystery of Jean McConville

• Jean McConville was a widowed mother of ten, abducted from her home by the IRA in 1972 and “disappeared.” Her children never knew her fate; her body was only found in 2003.
  • [03:02] Patrick Radden Keefe: “There was a woman named Jean McConville, who was a mother of 10 and a widow who was taken away by the IRA and disappeared. She was killed, but her body was buried in an unmarked grave.”
• The IRA justified the killing by labeling her as an informant, a claim her children vehemently deny.
  • [03:44] Patrick Radden Keefe: “This is what her children … vehemently contest … They said, what would she know? She was trying to take care of us.”
• No definitive answer exists regarding her informant status; the book lays out evidence on both sides.
  • [03:56] “There’s not a definitive answer … There are people who today will swear up and down that she was and that she wasn’t. So I don’t know.”

Trauma, Secrets, and the Oral History Project

• Former IRA figures like Dolores Price participated in secret oral history interviews stored at Boston College, meant to be sealed until the interviewee's death.
  • [02:44] David Remnick describes the Boston College tapes.
• In 2013, after Dolores Price’s death, information started to emerge about the McConville killing.
  • [04:55] Patrick Radden Keefe: “It was only more than a decade after that that people like Dolores Price started talking, and some of these secrets began to come out … about this death.”
• Keefe’s narrative approach – treating the true story with the depth and nuance of a novel to portray the impact of violence on both victims and perpetrators.
  • [05:19] “Part of what I was trying to do in this book is take one violent incident and approach it as you would a novel … and you look at the way it affected them, the victims and the perpetrators alike, and how that played out over the decades.”

The Gerry Adams Controversy

• The Boston College tapes pointed to significant political figures, including Gerry Adams, as being implicated in McConville’s murder.
• Adams has always denied ever being in the IRA or ordering any such murders, but Keefe states he is comfortable asserting Adams’ involvement, based on extensive IRA interviews.
  • [07:14] Patrick Radden Keefe: “Adams, who I feel pretty comfortable saying was in fact a commander in the IRA for many years.”
  • [07:22] David Remnick: “How do you know?”
  • [07:24] Patrick Radden Keefe: “Because I’ve interviewed a whole bunch of people who were in the IRA with him ... It’s Adams who maintains today that he was never in the IRA and there’s nobody else.”
• Whether Adams directly ordered the killing, Keefe says more than one person involved claimed he did.
  • [07:38] “Yes. And more than one person who was involved has said this. He denies it…”

Notable Quote:

“This means you could be torturing the man and he wouldn't tell you anything. ... But if you want to go in with your WE notebook, good luck to you.”
— Patrick Radden Keefe [08:25], on Gerry Adams' evasive tactics

Fracturing Among Former IRA Members

• Dolores Price and others felt betrayed by Adams for disavowing their shared history and violence as Sinn Fein moved into politics.
  • [09:58] “What you've done is you’ve changed the means ... Adams would rather blithely say, oh, well, I personally was never in the IRA. … And that drove some of these people mad.”
• The emotional and political legacy: Adams is essential to the peace process, but morally ambiguous.
  • [10:48] Patrick Radden Keefe: “I find him emotionally very unsympathetic. Downright sociopathic in his kind of clinical tendency ... But politically, Adams was the one who realized that you need to end this fight.”

The Reporting and Book

• Keefe describes the intense decision and legal process in naming a living person as a perpetrator in his book.
  • [12:12] “It was certainly the most intense decision I've ever made in my career as a reporter and writer. ... I would never have named the name ... unless I was absolutely sure.”
• The accused responded only with a denial after publication; no legal pushback ensued.
  • [13:18] “The book came out ... this person released a statement saying it wasn't true, but that they wouldn't be saying anything more about it. And I've heard nothing since.”

The Human Cost: Jean McConville’s Children

• The ten McConville children were orphaned and separated into different orphanages, suffering further trauma.
  • [13:57] Patrick Radden Keefe: “...the state split them up and put them in different orphanages. And those orphanages were every bit as bad as you might imagine... So the kids were re-victimized in a whole series of awful ways.”
• They were shocked by the revelations in Keefe’s book, but, upon reflection, the new information “made perfect sense.”
  • [14:40] “They were extremely surprised about the identity of the person who I pointed to. ... But when you thought about it, it made perfect sense.”

The Troubles’ Lingering Shadow

• Despite the peace process, threats and tensions persist, with fears that Brexit may inflame divisions and potentially lead to renewed violence.
  • [15:50] Patrick Radden Keefe: “There definitely is some form of [the IRA] that continues to exist and tensions are high... if you ignore this kind of history, it will come back and have its revenge... Some of the more alarmist coverage ... has suggested that you could get a return to the battle days of 1972. I think that's pretty unlikely.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Decision to Name a Suspect:

  “There was a lot of lawyering, as you’d imagine. And this person is still alive. ... I would never have named ... someone and accused them of carrying out one of the most heinous war crimes of the Troubles ... unless I was absolutely sure.”
  – Patrick Radden Keefe [12:12]

• On Gerry Adams and Political Irony:

  “There’s an enduring irony in the idea that this is a man who was guilty of ordering perhaps the most notorious war crime of the conflict that he then helped to end.”
  – Patrick Radden Keefe [10:48]

• On the Impossible Resolution for the McConville Family:

  “The kids were re-victimized in a whole series of awful ways.”
  – Patrick Radden Keefe [13:57]

• On the Unfinished History and the Threat of the Past Returning:

  “The past will not stay buried, and if you ignore this kind of history, it will come back and have its revenge.”
  – Patrick Radden Keefe [15:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Basic history of the Troubles, Dolores Price’s radicalization: [01:35–02:44]
• McConville’s abduction and family trauma: [03:02–04:49]
• Oral history project and the Boston College tapes: [04:55–06:03]
• Controversy around Gerry Adams: [06:51–08:25]
• IRA veteran perspectives and feelings of betrayal: [08:50–10:25]
• Moral, legal challenges in identifying living suspects: [12:12–13:13]
• McConville children’s afterlife and reactions: [13:47–15:21]
• Lingering IRA presence and fears post-Brexit: [15:46–17:10]

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Conclusion

Patrick Radden Keefe's reporting in Say Nothing—and in this interview—offers a deeply human portrait of the unsolved trauma and dangerous political legacy of the Troubles. Through the lens of the McConville murder, the episode highlights the devastating personal cost, the corrupt machinations of power, and the suffocating grip of unresolved history on modern Northern Ireland.

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Transcript

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[Patrick Radden Keefe]

I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, David Remnick talks with New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe. His new book, say Nothing, uncovered new information about a murder carried out by the Provisional IRA.

[Katie Drummond]

More than.

[David Remnick]

For nearly 40 years, the city of Belfast was synonymous with bombings, murders and guerrilla warfare.

[Mint Mobile Advertiser]

Police reported 56 hijackings, 17 bombings, 23 shooting incidents and nearly 200 attacks on.

[David Remnick]

The security the conflict in Northern Ireland between the British government and the IRA the Irish Republican army ended in 1998. Officially, that is. But the troubles can continued to bubble up in unexpected places. In 2013, Patrick Raden Keefe stumbled across an obituary of a woman named Delores Price.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

She was the first woman to serve as a real frontline soldier in the ira. She was part of that civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s and she got radicalized and she ends up leading a bombing mission to England and getting arrested and going to jail and going on holidays.

[David Remnick]

She helped blow up the Old Bailey.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

She helped blow up the Bailey. She led the mission and this is when she's scarcely out of her teens. She goes toe to toe with Margaret Thatcher. Eventually, Thatcher lets her out of prison. And later in her life, after the peace process, she was very disaffected.

[David Remnick]

After the Troubles, Delores Price took part in a secret oral history project. Members of the IRA were interviewed on tape about the acts of warfare and violence that they'd committed. The tapes were sent to Boston College here in the US and each record was supposed to remain sealed until the interviewee had died.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

And in 2013, when Dolores Price died, it had come out that she had been involved in what was one of the most notorious incidents in the Troubles, which was in 1972. There was a woman named Jean McConville, who was a mother of 10 and a widow who was taken away by the IRA and disappeared. She was killed, but her body was buried in an unmarked grave. Her kids never knew what happened to her.

[David Remnick]

Why would she have been killed by the ira?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

The children didn't know at the time. What we learned later is that the IRA maintains to this day that she was an informant for the British Army.

[David Remnick]

She's a mother of 10. What could she possibly known that it would have been of tremendous value to the ira?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

This is what her children, who are now adults, say is that they really vehemently contest any suggestion that she had been informed. They said, what would she know? She was trying to take care of us.

[David Remnick]

Is there an answer to that question?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

There's not a definitive answer in the book. I lay out the evidence on both sides and there are people who today will swear up and down that she was and that she wasn't. So I don't know.

[David Remnick]

When you say they disappeared this woman, what exactly did they do to her and when was it discovered?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Well, again, we didn't know. The children didn't know. One night in December 1972, she's at home with her kids and a group of people comes and knocks on the door in a housing project in West Belfast. They barge in, they have guns, they're masked, and they pull Jean McConville out. And her kids were quite young. The youngest were two. Twins were six years old at the time. They're clinging to her legs, they're screaming. These intruders say, we'll bring her back, we just want to talk to her. And they never saw her again. It was only in 2003 that her body was found.

[David Remnick]

2003, 30 odd years later, 31 years.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Later, her body's found by a beachcomber in the Republic of Ireland walking along a beach one Day.

[David Remnick]

So they're finding bones.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

They found bones. And there had been some storms and so some erosion in that coastal area. And these bones were kind of churned up from the ground. And it was only more than a decade after that that people like Dolores Price started talking, and some of these secrets began to come out about the circumstances of this death.

[David Remnick]

Why would they talk?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Because they experienced great trauma. So part of what I was trying to do in this book is take one violent incident and approach it as you would a novel. And you've got a handful of compelling, interesting characters, real people, and you look at the way it affected them, the victims and the perpetrators alike, and how that played out over the decades. And for some of them, people like Dolores Price, there was a huge amount of trauma associated with the. The violent acts that she had committed in the name of a united Ireland. So she looks back as a mother herself, as somebody reaching middle age, and begins to reevaluate some of the things she's done.

[David Remnick]

And what access did you have to the papers at Boston College?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

It was pretty limited. So they.

[David Remnick]

So not all debt?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Well, there's that. But then the other thing is that there was a huge political fight. Part of the reason I thought there might be a story here initially, a magazine article, was that on the one hand, it's a story about a terrible murder that happened in 1972. On the other hand, it's a story about how that history, far from being remote or a closed case or a cold case that nobody's paying any attention to, was incredibly politically explosive because more than one person had talked in this archive at Boston College about the circumstances of Gene McConville's death. And it emerged that people were pointing a finger at Gerry Adams.

[David Remnick]

So Gerry Adams, we should explain, is somebody who was always thought to be a leader of the Provisional ira, involved in violent acts. He's always denied it. He was also a member of Parliament in Britain and a leader of the Irish political party, Sinn Fein. And he became a pivotal figure in the reconciliation in the 90s. So why would this be such a big deal all these years later?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Well, for a variety of reasons. One is that Adams, who I feel pretty comfortable saying was in fact a commander in the IRA for many years.

[David Remnick]

How do you know?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Because I've interviewed a whole bunch of people who were in the IRA with him. Because really, it's Adams who maintains today that he was never in the IRA and there's nobody else.

[David Remnick]

So you're saying that he ordered the killing of Gene McConville?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Yes. Yes. And more than one person who was involved has said this. He denies it, but he denies he was ever in the ira. Look, it's funny. I did want to talk to Adams, but I was also mindful that just because you get the interview doesn't mean he's going to tell you anything. I had this hilarious encounter when I was doing the reporting where I talked to a former IRA guy who's known Adams for a long time. And he was saying, look, even if he talks to you, he's not going to tell you anything. And I sort of said, hey, don't underestimate me. You know, I've got my ways. And the guy kind of chuckled, and he said, you know, Jerry's had what they call counter interrogation training. This means you could be torturing the man and he wouldn't tell you anything. And he looked at me and he says, but if you want to go in with your WE notebook, good luck to you.

[David Remnick]

Listeners. Please note that was Patrick Keefe doing the imitation, not David Remnick. Now, Adams, you're saying, ordered this murder and ordered Dolores Price to do it. What was their relationship like, and did it stay the same?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

It didn't. And that's part of the dramatic arc of the book, is that there were a handful of people who are characters in the book who were very, very close when they were young members of the IRA in the early 1970s. And it wasn't just Dolores Price, it was her sister, Marion Price. It was a guy named Brendan Hughes who was involved in many of these operations. And they did some awful things. They set bombs in public places, they killed people, and they did so in the name of a united Ireland. And then in the 1990s, Adams, whose political instincts had always been a little bit more evolved, perhaps, than some of his contemporaries in the ira, starts to realize, we're not going to fight the British into the sea. And so he starts taking part in this peace process. And what that means for Dolores Price and Brendan Hughes and some of these other people who took orders from Adams, they feel betrayed is that they feel betrayed, is that they say, I did these things telling myself that the ends would justify the means. And what you've done is you've changed the means.

[David Remnick]

There would be a united Ireland.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

There would be a united Ireland, and there might be a great deal of bloodshed in order to get there, but we would get there, and you've changed the game. And then, in addition to doing that, Adams would rather blithely say, oh, well, I personally was never in the ira. I didn't order any of these things. I don't have any of that blood on my hands myself. And that drove some of these people mad. I mean, I think some of it was PTSD and trauma. But there was also a sense of. A very acute sense of betrayal.

[David Remnick]

Clearly, you do not find Gerry Adams an attractive figure in many, many ways. On the other hand, this is a question of incredible historical significance in the region. And it was resolved. And it was resolved with Jerry Adams at the center of it. So in the end, how do you think history will treat Gerry Adams?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

This is one of the great ironies of Adams as a figure. I find him emotionally very unsympathetic. Downright sociopathic in his kind of clinical tendency to just cast aside anybody who's not useful to him anymore. But politically, Adams was the one who realized that you need to end this fight. And so I do think that there's an enduring irony in the idea that this is a man who was guilty of ordering perhaps the most notorious war crime of the conflict that he then helped to end.

[David Remnick]

So say Nothing is, in my mind, two books at once. First, it's the best book about the Troubles I've ever read. And that's on one side. On the other, it's a murder mystery, and you solve it. Your book discusses Dolores Price. She was a possibility, in your mind, an IRA member named Patrick McClure. Who was a possibility for reasons that you get into. And there's a third person. And in a sense, this book is a whodunit. I don't want to make light of it, but there's a mystery that's solved here. And a third person is named. What is it like to accuse somebody of murder in a book? And have you heard from this person?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

It was certainly the most intense decision I've ever made in my career as a reporter and writer. I'll tell you that. There was a lot of lawyering, as you'd imagine. And this person is still alive. And had never been associated with this murder.

[David Remnick]

Had he or she been associated with any other murder.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Yes. So it was a former IRA member. But I. Yeah, I'll put it to you this way. Leaving aside the legal issue morally, I would never have named the name and pointed the finger at someone and accused them of carrying out one of the most heinous war crimes of the Troubles of a terrible conflict.

[David Remnick]

Have you gotten a response from the accused?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

So I initially reached out to this person's lawyer in May and got nothing. And got in touch again. Got nothing. And said, I'm going to publish this book accusing your client. Nothing. The book came out in not even.

[David Remnick]

A response, a negative response, a cease and desist, anything, Nothing.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

And the book came out in November in the UK and Ireland in part because it had this news in it which they wanted to get out because it was a fairly newsworthy thing over there. And it was excerpted in the Sunday Times. They got in touch with a lawyer a few days before publishing the excerpt, got a no comment. A few days after the book came out, this person released a statement saying it wasn't true, but that they wouldn't be saying anything more about it. And I've heard nothing since.

[David Remnick]

Now, one thing we've forgotten here is 10 kids lost their mother and became orphans instantly. What became of those 10 children, the McConville children?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Well, things didn't get any easier for them. They, it was heartbreaking. They initially tried to stay in the family apartment because they thought their mother might be coming back. But eventually the state stepped in and they said, look, if you're going to put us into a home, can you at least have us all be together? And the state split them up and put them in different orphanages. And those orphanages were every bit as bad as you might imagine that Irish orphanages would have been in this period of time. And so the kids were re victimized in a whole series of awful ways.

[David Remnick]

When you made this name public, how did the kids, who are now obviously well grown, how did they react?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

It was an intense experience. I wrote a letter to Jean McConville's children prior to the book coming out, telling them what I had learned. And they'd always had a different idea of what might have happened. They were extremely surprised about the identity of the person who I pointed to. But what I heard from a lot of people who have watched this case closely and know some of the parties involved is again, this idea that they were both shocked to learn the identity of this person. But when you thought about it, it made perfect sense.

[David Remnick]

Patrick, in many ways, the troubles feel like a long time ago. You found that sources were still sometimes reluctant to talk to, even now, for fear of the ira. And as recently as last month, a car bomb was discovered in Northern Ireland, which is not good news. Do you feel as though the troubles are somehow bubbling up again in some form or another?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Well, I think that.

[David Remnick]

And why is there an Iraq?

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Well, that's a big question. There's a line that Jerry Adams used famously. He was giving a speech and somebody in the audience yells, bring back the ira. And Adams leaned into the microphone and said, they haven't gone away. You know, and this is a big question in Northern Ireland, is this idea of is the IRA still there? And there definitely is some form of it that continues to exist and tensions are high. And I think they're only going to get higher if with Brexit, we see some possibility of the return of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the North. So on one level, to the extent that there's a thesis in this book, it's that the past will not stay buried, and if you ignore this kind of history, it will come back and have its revenge. And I think we're seeing that a little bit in the. The Brexit context. Having said that, some of the more alarmist coverage of the situation recently has suggested that you could get a return to the battle days of 1972. I think that's pretty unlikely. I think that you could see on the margins great tension and maybe a little violence here and there, but I don't think there's the appetite for people to go back at this point.

[David Remnick]

Patrick Keefe, thank you very much.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

Thank you.

[David Remnick]

The New Yorker's Patrick Radden Keefe. His book about the Troubles and the murder of Gene McConville is called say Nothing and it comes out this week.

[Katie Drummond]

What the hell is going on right now and why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting the bottom of those questions on a daily basis, and maybe you are, too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Interview. Each week I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big Interview conversations are fun.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

I want a shark that.

[Katie Drummond]

That eats the Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online. To the best of my ability, every.

[Katie Drummond]

Week we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times, meaning and context. True or false. You, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me, one day, at some point, as of yet undefined, in the future, you will die. False. Tell me more. Listen to the Big Interview right now in the same place you find WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[Patrick Radden Keefe]

From. Prx.