The Disappeared

In today's terrorism-saturated atmosphere, it's easy to forget that four decades ago the Irish Republican Army was a major dealer in death—even among its own people. A BBC-Northern Ireland TV co-production, filmmaker Alison Millar's guilt-ridden The Disappeared delivers a j'accuse concerning an internal IRA policy of the 1970s directing members to abduct, execute, and quietly bury Catholics suspected of being informants for U.K. troops (a crusty old IRA vet says the men of his 1940s-‘50s era would never be so underhanded; they'd simply leave the bodies by the road). The most famous of the "disappeared" was one of the earliest, a Belfast widow and mother of 10 named Jean McConville, who may just have been "the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time" when IRA thugs vanished her in 1972 (and then planted stories in the accommodating press that she was merely "in hiding"). Her remains were found near a beach in 2003. Although the IRA (following peace accords signed in 1994) admitted to taking nine lives, nearly twice that number of deaths/disappearances have been blamed on the organization, whose charismatic political leader Gerry Adams may be more culpable than he admits to here. Also appearing is President Bill Clinton, who personally took on the cause. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)