Interview
Patrick Radden Keefe, Author of "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland"
- Patrick Radenkeef anticipates a narrative approach focusing on a specific act of violence to connect victims and perpetrators rather than providing a comprehensive history of the Troubles, while predicting a prevailing sense that the price of peace requires silence and that topics remain better not discussed.
- Future challenges include a persistent "wall of silence" from characters, a feeling among foot soldiers that the Good Friday Agreement changed without their consent, and potential legal maneuvering where arguments regarding the fragility of peace could have influenced the Boston College legal demands.
- Brexit is expected to force a choice that reinscribes the border line, potentially requiring infrastructure hardening, while triggering a near-term resurgence of some violence on the margins, though conditions do not support a full return to the Troubles of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
- Political trajectories suggest the possibility of a reunification referendum in the coming years driven by polling in the north, with medium to long-term speculation that Brexit might inadvertently lead to reunification, countered by fears in the Republic of Ireland regarding a lack of desire for the North and northerners' fear of being unwanted.
- Gerry Adams is expected to assert that the Troubles were a misunderstanding, claim he was never in the IRA, state he resisted interrogation by questioning premises, and describe sleeping without guilt over past actions.
- The current political stance of Gerry Adams is characterized as a chilly, analytical, and emotionally remote strategy where he remains a figure prepared to cut loose former comrades if it serves his best interests.