An award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, Patrick Radden Keefe is the author of several books, including the 2019 international bestseller Say Nothing; A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland – an in-depth examination of The Troubles. Along with winning both the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Say Nothing recently debuted as a 9-episode streaming series on FX.

Truth can be a bit of a grey area in Northern Ireland.
Well, that’s part of the reason that I wanted to be involved in this production; the book was obviously close to my heart and the issues are still very present for people who live in Northern Ireland – it doesn’t feel like distant history. And so, it was important to me that if the story was going to be dramatized, that it be done in a way that felt responsible and true to the book. I worked with two producers who I have known for many years, and what is crazy is that we have now spent more time working on the show than I spent writing the book. It has been a labour of love, but it was important for me that it feel true to the book and true to the conflict. I loved the 2023 BBC series Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland – it was really well done – but we wanted to do something new and so vivid that made it feel as if the conflict was happening right now. So, it is scrupulously and historically factual; the production design is incredible in terms of creating the feeling that you are in Belfast in 1972 – the excitement and the terror, the romance and the tragedy – and that comes through beautifully.

How did you handle language and accents?
One of my concerns was that I wanted to have a real sense of authenticity. Without mentioning any names, there have been a few films about The Troubles that don’t feel organic to the place. I wanted actors that would nail the accents. I didn’t want a bunch of Shakespearean actors from England putting on bad Belfast accents, so we ended up with a cast that included several folks from West Belfast. Others were from the Republic of Ireland, and – in some cases – we hired actors from England who worked with a dialect coach.

What about production design?
I didn’t want it to feel too pretty, too cleaned up. I didn’t want this to be the Disney version of The Troubles. However, Belfast today is not the gritty city it was in 1972, so we ended up doing much of the shooting in Liverpool, a community that was built around the same time as Belfast – all those classic brick row houses and neighbourhoods still look as they did back in the early 1970s.

How else were you able to convey that sense of authenticity?
The most important ingredients of the book were capturing the music, the language, and – even in the darkest times – the sense of play and gallows humor that was so intrinsic to life back then. That humour became a real coping mechanism for people there, and that was something that the writers managed to get down. So, the show, strangely enough, is a tragedy in many ways, but it is also very funny series with a lot of cross talking back and forth.

Laughter heals. Has there been some sort of collective healing there since the signing of the Peace Accord in 1998?
I am a bit torn on this one because I feel as though there should be. The Good Friday Agreement was a miracle in a lot of ways, and if that agreement is worth the paper it is printed on, you hope that subsequent generations can grow up in that part of the world and not feel like they had this history hanging around their necks. On the one hand, The Troubles seem like a very long time ago. On the other hand, there are a lot of people there still living with a great deal of trauma and terrible memories. It feels very recent to a lot of people. It was interesting; I appeared at the Belfast Book Festival and also did a reading at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace and I had no idea who would show up, or even if anyone would show up. And both times they were packed houses of mostly young people, in their 20s and 30s, whose parents had lived through this but never talk about it. These younger people didn’t grow up with it, and so they read the book to give them some sense of their own history here. I don’t know that there is any greater affirmation that I could have asked for than that.

What has the response been like from those that have seen the series?
I am very close to this thing, emotionally, and I have seen a million cuts of it, so I don’t have any objectivity. So, it has been really exciting and encouraging for me to have others watch it – some who have read the book, and others that have not. What I cared the most about was getting it right for two cast members in particular – Lola and Anthony – as their families were from there. I wanted more than anything for the series to feel like we have told the story about their home with a sense of integrity. Thankfully, they both loved it and called me to tell me how proud they are to be a part of this. And it really resonated with their families as well. One of our lead directors was Mike Lennox, who is from Belfast and directed every episode of Derry Girls. What I love about Derry Girls is that people of that city felt like the producers got it right – right down to all the little details. And that series wasn’t just a hit in Northern Ireland and the U.K., it was also a hit in Korea and in France and elsewhere around the world – there is a universality to the story. And that was part of the reason we wanted Mike on board – to both tell the story of a specific place and time and resonate with people who have never been to Northern Ireland and, in some cases, can’t even find it on a map.

Has this experience stirred any interest in a sequel or a follow up?
I don’t know. Certainly, we are all very pleased with the way that things turned out for the first year, and that remains our only focus for the time being. I am curious to see it if Belfast is still under my skin. I feel an intense attachment to that part of the world, and I will likely keep going back for the rest of my life. Whether that leads to another book or series, only time will tell. For now, I am content to have said something.

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