SAY NOTHING HAS won a prestigious Peabody Award in the Entertainment category.

The nine-part series, based on the best-selling book of the same title by author Patrick Radden Keefe, focuses on the disappearance of Jean McConville.

Nobody has ever been charged with McConville’s killing, who was taken from her home in west Belfast in December 1972 and murdered by the Provisional IRA. 

Her remains were found by a walker in August 2003 on a beach in Co Louth.

The Peabody Awards celebrate storytelling that reflects the social issues and the emerging voices of our day.

Established in 1940, the Peabody Award was originally created to honour excellence in radio broadcasting and was the radio industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes.

However, it was later expanded to include television and now includes podcasts, social media videos and streaming media.

The Board of the Peabody Award said it seeks “excellence on its own terms” and “stories that matter” and that it awards  storytelling rather than popularity or commercial success.

(L-R) Brad Simpson, Michael Lennox, Monica Levinson, Joshua Zetumer, Anthony Boyle, Lola Petticrew, Hazel Doupe, Nina Jacobson and Maxine Peake, winners of the Peabody Award for Say Nothing Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Say Nothing was among the scripted series winners in the Entertainment category, alongside Netflix’s Baby Reindeer.

The Board remarked that Say Nothing was successful because it explores “the social power of radical political belief, the code of silence that bound believers to secrecy, and the haunting emotional and psychological consequences of extreme violence on the lives and families of those who were lost and those who survived”.

At the awards ceremony, Joshua Zetumer, creator and executive producer of Say Nothing, said: “When bad things happen – and believe me they’re happening right now – the most dangerous thing we can do is stay silent.”

Speaking to ABC on the read carpet before the 85^th annual Peabody Awards, Lola Petticrew said it was “amazing” to be at the ceremony.

Petticrew plays a young Dolours Price in Say Nothing.

They said that “everything the Peabody Awards stand for is something that really resonates with me”.

“The reason why I want to tell stories and to be an artist is to tell the stories that are meaningful.”