Ex-IRA bomber Marian Price sues Disney over Jean McConville murder scene in ‘Say Nothing'
Former IRA bomber Marian Price is suing Disney over a scene in the drama series Say Nothing, which she claims 'falsely portrays her as having carried out the execution-style murder of Jean McConville by shooting her in the back of the head'.
Price (71), who is suing under her married name McGlinchey, is seeking damages, including aggravated and punitive damages, for defamation against Disney over its Disney+ show, according to the plenary summons lodged in the High Court in Dublin.
Punitive damages are awarded in defamation cases where a defendant has engaged in malicious, outrageous or vindictive conduct.
Price is seeking an injunction restraining the defendants from further publishing the same or similar allegations about her. She also wants an order 'for the immediate removal of the relevant scene of Episode 9, depicting the alleged murder'.
The case was lodged by Price's solicitors, Phoenix Law, on July 2.
Since then, Dentons — the UK firm that recently represented the BBC in its unsuccessful defence of a defamation action by Gerry Adams in Dublin — has come on record to represent Disney and Minim UK Productions, a co-defendant in the case.
While the Disney+ series is based on the 2018 book by Patrick Radden Keefe of the same name, the book did not provoke legal action from Price.
Price's lawyers have said that while Keefe's book was suggestive in claiming she may have shot Ms McConville, the dramatisation was explicit in portraying that this happened.
Price was jailed for her part in a bombing campaign in London in 1973 before being released in 1980. She was later a vocal critic of the Good Friday Agreement.
The series depicts her sister, Dolours Price, as one of three IRA volunteers who have one gun available to kill Ms McConville. The kidnapped woman is shown on her knees while desperately reciting the names of her 10 children.
Dolours Price is shown deliberately shooting wide of Ms McConville, before her sister takes the gun and completes the killing with one shot.
Marian Price is seeking damages for defamation
The 'disappearance' of the mother of 10 from her home in the Divis Flats in Belfast in 1972 is one of the IRA's most notorious crimes. Her body was only recovered in 2003, from a beach in Co Louth.
Radden Keefe's book is partly based on the Belfast Project at Boston College, which involved former paramilitaries speaking about their experiences of the Troubles.
Among those who taped interviews that were to be released only after their deaths were former IRA volunteers Dolours Price and Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes.
Both claimed that former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams had authorised Ms McConville's disappearance, something Adams denied.
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor plays the older version of Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes
The Price sisters are central characters in Radden Keefe's book and the Disney adaptation, in which they are played by Lola Petticrew (Dolours) and Hazel Doupe (Marian) in their younger years.
Maxine Peake plays the older Dolours up to her death in 2013, and Helen Behan plays the older Marian. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor plays the older version of Brendan Hughes.
Dolours Price is depicted as being disgusted at witnessing Gerry Adams carrying Hughes's coffin after his death in 2008.
At the end of every episode of the Disney+ series, text is shown saying that Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA or participating in IRA violence.
After the final episode, the text says Adams denies any involvement in the murder of Ms McConville. It also says Marian Price denies any involvement in the murder of Ms McConville.
Hazel Doupe as Marian and Lola Petticrew as Dolours Price in 'Say Nothing' on Disney+
In 2014, Marian Price pleaded guilty to providing a mobile phone that was used by the Real IRA in 2009 to claim the attack in which British soldiers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey were killed outside Massereene Barracks in Co Antrim.
She has always strongly denied any involvement in the murder of Ms McConville since Radden Keefe's book was published.
Speaking to the Sunday World before the Disney+ series was made, the US author and journalist said he stood over his reporting.
'I wouldn't have published Marian's name and suggested that she murdered Jean McConville if I had even one per cent doubt that it was true,' he said.
Radden Keefe is credited as an executive producer on the Disney+ show.
I stand by my reporting. I'm quite transparent about my process of deduction
'It would be unconscionable to make such an accusation if I was not completely certain. But I was certain,' he told reporters.
'She has denied it, though I would note that it took her five months, from when I initially approached her solicitor for comment back in May, to do so.
'I stand by my reporting. I'm quite transparent about my process of deduction in the book, so readers can decide for themselves whether they are persuaded.'
Peter Corrigan, one of Price's solicitors, told the Sunday World last year that the TV show was less ambiguous than the book about the central allegation about his client.
'Who is his source on this claim?' he asked. 'The book is one thing — it's more ambiguous — but the Disney show is categoric about Marian murdering Jean McConville.'
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