Book Review
Book Review: The Disappeared drags a murky aspect of Irish history out into the light
Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc’s brilliantly researched and highly unsettling history of Irish ‘forced disappearances’ spans from 1798 to 1998
The Provisional IRA volunteers who murdered Belfast mother-of-ten and suspected informer Jean McConville in 1972 were divided over what to do with her body.
“I wasn’t opposed to shooting touts,” one later recalled, “but I couldn’t see the sense of shooting anybody and burying them.” He was overruled by his local IRA brigade leaders (one of them allegedly Gerry Adams), who said “they couldn’t take the heat from throwing her on the street”. McConville duly ...
