Marian Price, a former member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), has initiated formal legal proceedings by way of pre-action correspondence against Disney for their publication "Say Nothing," Phoenix Law announced on Wednesday, December 4.
The series "Say Nothing," which debuted on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ internationally on November 14, is an adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe's bestselling 2018 book of the same name.
Belfast-based Phoenix Law said on Wednesday that the legal proceedings have been initiated as a result of Marian Price being depicted in the series as "the person to whom was responsible for murdering Ms. Jean McConville."
Peter Corrigan, Solicitor for Marian Price, said on Wednesday: “Given the context, it is difficult to envisage a more egregious allegation than the one to which has been levelled against our client.
"As someone who has been involved at every level of the related Boston College criminal proceedings, it is clear that the instant allegation is not based on a single iota of evidence.
"Such allegations published on an international scale are not only unjustified, but they are odious insofar as they seek to cause our client immeasurable harm in exchange for greater streaming success.
"Our client has now been forced to initiate legal proceedings to hold Disney to account for their actions.”
Radden Keefe said last month that he felt the portrayal of Marian Price in the new series, of which he was an executive producer, was "the most sympathetic version."
"I think it's very sympathetic to her," Radden Keefe said, according to Town & Country Magazine.
"I guarantee you, there will be people who are familiar with Marian Price and her history who watch the series and say, 'You're too compassionate to her. You give her too much of a fair shake here.'"
He continued: "I think there's a way of not condoning people who do things that you might find morally repugnant, but really trying hard to understand them. There's a kind of moral vanity in saying, 'oh, that's just an evil villain. I would never do such a thing. I could never find myself in a situation where I would be capable of doing such things.'
"I feel as though we look in a fairly clear-eyed way at the things that she did, but it's about as sympathetic a hearing as you could give."
In 2018, upon the publication of the book "Say Nothing," Marian Price similarly "vehemently denied" the claim that she killed Jean McConville.
In his book, Radden Keefe wrote how Ed Moloney, the director of the oral history Belfast Project at Boston College, gave him an unpublished transcript of one of two long interviews he conducted with Dolours Price, Marian's sister and also a former member of the IRA.
Radden Keefe wrote that the transcript he received featured one "key redaction" - the name of the third executioner at McConville's grave.
"His [Moloney's] rationale was simple," Keefe wrote, "[Dolours] Price and [Pat] McClure were dead, but this third person was still alive."
Keefe went on to write: "I spoke to one other person in whom Dolours had confided before she died in 2013. I asked whether she had ever mentioned Marian playing a role in the McConville killing. This person confirmed she had - that Dolours had said the execution of Jean McConville was 'something the sisters had done together.'"
In 2018, Corrigan said that his client Marian Price "vehemently denies any involvement in the murder of Jean McConville.
"She outright refutes any assertion to the contrary.
"We have now been instructed to review the publication in question, and the appropriate action will follow if necessary."
Jean McConville and the 'Disappeared' of The Troubles
Jean McConville, a widowed mother-of-ten, was abducted by masked men and women from her home in the Divis Flats in West Belfast in December 1972.
It was 1995 before McConville's death began to be formally investigated when a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) team was established to review the cases of 'the disappeared,' including McConville.
In 1999, 27 years after McConville's disappearance and more than a year after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA admitted to killing McConville, claiming that they believed she was an informant.
McConville's body was found on a beach in Co Louth on August 26, 2003. The remains were tested and showed that McConville had been shot in the head.
The following year, a verdict of “unlawful killing” was delivered by Ronan Maguire BL, the Coroner for County Louth, following an Inquest which took place on April 5, 2004.
In July 2006, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland found no evidence that McConville was an informant. The Ombudsman also found that a complaint lodged by brothers James and Michael McConville that the RUC failed to investigate the abduction of their mother was substantiated.
Marian Price has never been formally charged with McConville's murder. In 2018, the Irish Times reported that Price "is understood to have never been questioned by police over the offence."
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