Part I

Part I of Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland is entitled “The Clear, Clean, Sheer Thing”. This section provides the exposition, introducing the predominant people, places, and ideas that will prove so relevant in Keefe’s analytical narrative of events in The Troubles. In introducing and developing figures such as Dolours Price – pictured below – Part I offers the reader a more comprehensive understanding of the intricacies of The Troubles. In covering the content of this first section, our group identified the vital thematic through-line of ‘borders and boundaries.’ As displayed in the entries and annotations included, analysis of this through-line manifested itself in terms both more literal and more abstract, just as one may expect from the intricate conflict of The Troubles. For instance, Dolours Price, around whom Keefe centers much of his narrative, engaged with boundaries both more physical and more conceptual as she evolved in her active involvement in Republican resistance. Both the physical and conceptual boundaries analyzed function to provide the reader of Keefe’s work with a more thorough understanding of the historical elements he introduces in this first section, and accordingly prepare them more fully to engage with the rest of his narrative and its prevailing themes.