“Who should be held accountable for a shared history of violence? It was a question that was dogging Northern Ireland as a whole.”
The Troubles saw an amplification of events that went beyond political resistance and some became borderline war crimes. In this true story, a violent crime was committed against Jean McConville with her remains being found years later. During her abduction, she left behind ten children who now in the future want answers and accountability. Therefore, the murders and violence committed by the IRA now raise the sensitive subject of who should be held culpable when the specifics are vague and complex.
“If you could just get people to talk, he believed, the most bitter antagonists could discover common ground.”
The crimes and terrorist acts by the Irish Republic Army during the Troubles that victimized innocent civilians haunt the history of Northern Ireland. As the title suggests silence was the default attitude held by many if not all, no one was willing to say something and risk the implications. In the present, the war between the faction and the British soldier is long over but the tensions persist in the memories. The implications of the crimes are now following the perpetrators as the victims seek to find justice. However, the confessions and the truths of the past still find the ‘antagonists’ have loopholes to not be implicated in the atrocities.
“There is a concept in psychology called ‘moral injury,’ notion, distinct from the idea of trauma that relates to the ways in which ex-soldiers make sense of the socially transgressive things they have done during wartime.”
The political stance of the IRA was initially noble but took drastic turns that persecuted innocent people. Many Irish people fell victim to the atrocities of the IRA for their political stances such as Jean who was suspected of aiding the British soldiers. Rather than have a platform to justify or defend her actions she was murdered by the faction without remorse. While past members of the faction deny their involvement there are also many who regret and harbor moral injury for their actions.
